Etext of The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin 
by Harriet Beecher Stowe 
Boston: Jewett, 
1854 

CHAPTER I.

AT different times, doubt has been expressed whether the scenes
and characters pourtrayed in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" convey a fair
representation of slavery as it at present exists. This work, more,
perhaps, than any other work of fiction that ever was written, has
been a collection and arrangement of real incidents, of actions
really performed, of words and expressions really uttered, grouped
together with reference to a general result, in the same manner that
the mosaic artist groups his fragments of various stones into one
general picture. His is a mosaic of gems--this is a mosaic of facts.

Artistically considered, it might not be best to point out in which
quarry and from which region each fragment of the mosaic picture
had its origin; and it is equally unartistic to disentangle the
glittering web of fiction, and show out of what real warp and woof
it is woven, and with what real colouring dyed. But the book had a
purpose entirely transcending the artistic one, and accordingly
encounters at the hands of the public demands not usually made on
fictitious works. It is treated as a reality--sifted, tried, and tested,
as a reality; and therefore as a reality it may be proper that it
should be defended.

The writer acknowledges that the book is a very inadequate
representation of slavery; and it is so, necessarily, for this
reason--that slavery, in some of its workings, is too dreadful for the
purposes of art. A work which should represent it strictly as it is
would be a work which could not be read; and all works which
ever mean to give pleasure must draw a veil somewhere, or they
cannot succeed.

The author will now proceed along the course of the story, from
the first page, and develop, as far as possible, the incidents by
which different parts were suggested.

CHAPTER II. MR. HALEY.

IN the very first chapter of the book we encounter the character of
the negro-trader, Mr. Haley. His name stands at the head of this
chapter as the representative of all the different characters
introduced in the work which exhibit the trader, the kidnapper, the
negro-catcher, the negro-whipper, and all the other inevitable
auxiliaries and indispensable appendages of what is often called
the "divinely-instituted relation" of slavery. The author's first
personal observation of this class of beings was somewhat as
follows:

Several years ago, while one morning employed in the duties of
the nursery, a coloured woman was announced. She was ushered
into the nursery, and the author thought, on first survey, that a
more surly, unpromising face she had never seen. The woman was
thoroughly black, thickset, firmly built, and with strongly-marked
African features. Those who have been accustomed to read the
expressions of the African face know what a peculiar effect is
produced by a lowering, desponding expression upon its dark
features. It is like the shadow of a thunder-cloud. Unlike her race
generally, the woman did not smile when smiled upon, nor utter
any pleasant remark in reply to such as were addressed to her. The
youngest pet of the nursery, a boy about three years old, walked
up, and laid his little hand on her knee, and seemed astonished not
to meet the quick smile which the negro almost always has in
reserve for the little child. The writer thought her very cross and
disagreeable, and, after a few moments' silence, asked, with
perhaps a little impatience, "Do you want anything of me to-day?"

"Here are some papers," said the woman, pushing them towards
her; "perhaps you would read them."

The first paper opened was a letter from a negro-trader in
Kentucky, stating concisely that he had waited about as long as he
could for her child; that he wanted to start for the South, and must
get it off his hands; that, if she would send him two hundred
dollars before the end of the week, she should have it; if not, that
he would set it up at auction, at the court-house door on Saturday.
He added, also, that he might have got more than that for the child,
but that he was willing to let her have it cheap.

"What sort of man is this?" said the author to the woman, when she
had done reading the letter.

"Dunno, ma'am; great Christian I know--member of the Methodist
church, anyhow."

The expression of sullen irony with which this was said was a
thing to be remembered.

"And how old is this child?" said the author to her.

The woman looked at the little boy who had been standing at her
knee with an expressive glance, and said, "She will be three years
old this summer."

On further inquiry into the history of the woman, it appeared that
she had been set free by the will of her owners; that the child was
legally entitled to freedom, but had been seized on by the heirs of
the estate. She was poor and friendless, without money to maintain
a suit, and the heirs, of course, threw the child into the hands of the
trader. The necessary sum, it may be added, was all raised in the
small neighbourhood which then surrounded the Lane Theological
Seminary, and the child was redeemed.

If the public would like a specimen of the correspondence which
passes between these worthies, who are the principal reliance of
the community for supporting and extending the institution of
slavery, the following may be interesting as a matter of literary
curiosity. It was forwarded by Mr. M. J. Thomas, of Philadelphia,
to the National Era, and stated by him to be "a copy taken verbatim
from the original, found among the papers of the person to whom
it was addressed, at the time of his arrest and conviction, for
passing a variety of counterfeit banknotes:"--

Poolsville, Montgomery Co., Md., 
Date: March 24, 1831.

DEAR SIR,--I arrived home in safety with Louisa, John having
been rescued from me, out of a two-storey window, at twelve
o'clock at night. I offered a reward of fifty dollars, and have him
here safe in jail. The persons who took him, brought him to
Fredericktown jail. I wish you to write to no person in this State
but myself. Kephart and myself are determined to go the whole
hog for any negro you can find, and you must give me the earliest
information, as soon as you do find any. Enclosed you will receive
a handbill, and I can make a good bargain if you can find them. I
will, in all cases, as soon as a negro runs off, send you a handbill
immediately, so that you may be on the look-out. Please tell the
constable to go on with the sale of John's property; and, when the
money is made, I will send on an order to you for it. Please attend
to this for me; likewise write to me, and inform me of any negro
you think has run away--no matter where you think he has come
from, nor how far--and I will try to find out his master. Let me
know where you think he is from, with all particular marks, and if
I don't find his master, Joe's dead!

Write to me about the crooked-fingered negro, and let me know
which hand and which finger, colour, &c;.; likewise any mark the
fellow has who says he got away from the negro-buyer, with his
height and colour, or any other you think has run off.

Give my respects to your partner, and be sure you write to no
person but myself. If any person writes to you, you can inform me
of it, and I will try to buy from them. I think we can make money,
if we do business together; for I have plenty of money, if you can
find plenty of negroes. Let we know if Daniel is still where he was,
and if you have heard anything of Francis since I left you. Accept
for myself my regard and esteem.REUBEN B. CARLLEY.John C.
Saunders.

This letter strikingly illustrates the character of these fellow-
patriots with whom the great men of our land have been acting in
conjunction, in carrying out the beneficent provisions of the
Fugitive Slave Law.

With regard to the Kephart named in this letter, the community of
Boston may have a special interest to know further particulars, as
he was one of the dignitaries sent from the South to assist the good
citizens of that place in the religious and patriotic enterprise of
1851, at the time that Shadrach was unfortunately rescued. It,
therefore, may be well to introduce somewhat particularly JOHN
KEPHART, as sketched by RICHARD H. DANA, Jun., one of the
lawyers employed in the defence of the perpetrators of the
rescue:--

I shall never forget John Caphart. I have been eleven years at the
bar, and in that time have seen many developments of vice and
hardness, but I never met with anything so cold-blooded as the
testimony of that man. John Caphart is a tall, sallow man, of about
fifty, with jet-black hair, a restless, dark eye, and an anxious,
care-worn look, which, had there been enough of moral element in
the expression, might be called melancholy. His frame was strong,
and in youth he had evidently been powerful, but he was not
robust. Yet there was a calm, cruel look, a power of will and a
quickness of muscular action, which still render him a terror in his
vocation.

In the manner of giving in his testimony, there was no bluster or
outward show of insolence. His contempt for the humane feelings
of the audience and community about him was too true to require
any assumption of that kind. He neither paraded nor attempted to
conceal the worst features of his calling. He treated it as a matter
of business, which he knew the community shuddered at, but the
moral nature of which he was utterly indifferent to, beyond a
certain secret pleasure in thus indirectly inflicting a little torture on
his hearers.

I am not, however, altogether clear, to do John Caphart justice,
that he is entirely conscience-proof. There was something in his
anxious look which leaves one not without hope.

At the first trial we did not know of his pursuits, and he passed
merely as a policeman of Norfolk, Virginia. But, at the second
trial, some one in the room gave me a hint of the occupations
many of these policemen take to, which led to my
cross-examination.

From the Examination of John Caphart, in the "Rescue Trials," at
Boston, in June and November, 1851, and October, 1852.

Question. Is it a part of your duty, as a policeman, to take up
coloured persons who are out after hours in the streets?

Answer. Yes, sir.

Q. What is done with them?

A. We put them in the lock-up, and in the morning they are
brought into court and ordered to be punished--those that are to be
punished.

Q. What punishment do they get?

A. Not exceeding thirty-nine lashes.

Q. Who gives them these lashes?

A. Any of the officers. I do sometimes.

Q. Are you paid extra for this? How much?

A. Fifty cents a head. It used to be sixty-two cents. Now it is fifty.
Fifty cents for each one we arrest, and fifty more for each one we
flog.

Q. Are these persons you flog men and boys only, or are they
women and girls also?

A. Men, women, boys, and girls, just as it happens.

[The government interfered, and tried to prevent any further
examination; and said, among other things, that he only performed
his duty as police-officer under the law. After a discussion, Judge
Curtis allowed it to proceed.]

Q. Is your flogging confined to these cases? Do you not flog slaves
at the request of their masters?

A. Sometimes I do. Certainly, when I am called upon.

Q. In these cases of private flogging, are the negroes sent to you?
Have you a place for flogging?

A. No. I go round, as I am sent for.

Q. Is this part of your duty as an officer?

A. No, sir.

Q. In these cases of private flogging, do you inquire into the
circumstances, to see what the fault has been, or if there is any?

A. That's none of my business. I do as I am requested. The master
is responsible.

Q. In these cases, too, I suppose you flog women and girls, as well
as men?

A. Women and men.

Q. Mr. Caphart, how long have you been engaged in this business?

A. Ever since 1836.

Q. How many negroes do you suppose you have flogged, in all,
women and children included?

A. [Looking calmly round the room.] I don't know how many
niggers you have got here in Massachusetts, but I should think I
had flogged as many as you've got in the State.

[The same man testified that he was often employed to pursue
fugitive slaves. His reply to the question was, "I never refuse a
good job in that line."]

Q. Don't they sometimes turn out bad jobs?

A. Never, if I can help it.

Q. Are they not sometimes discharged after you get them?

A. Not often. I don't know that they ever are, except those
Portuguese the counsel read about.

[I had found, in a Virginia report, a case of some two hundred
Portuguese negroes, whom this John Caphart had seized from a
vessel, and endeavoured to get condemned as slaves, but whom the
Court discharged.]

Hon. John P. Hale, associated with Mr. Dana as counsel for the
defence in the Rescue Trials, said of him in his closing argument:--

Why, gentlemen, he sells agony! Torture is his stock-in-trade! He
is a walking scourge! He hawks, peddles, retails, groans and tears
about the streets of Norfolk!

See also the following correspondence between the two traders,
one in North Carolina, the other in New Orleans: with a word of
comment by Bishop Wilberforce, of Oxford:--

Halifax, N. C., 
Date: Nov. 16, 1839.

DEAR SIR,--I have shipped in the brig Addison--prices are below:  
Dollars.
No.1.Caroline Ennis 650.00"
2.Silvy Holland 625.00"
3.Silvy Booth 487.50"
4.Maria Pollock 475.00"
5.Emeline Pollock 475.00"
6.Delia Averit 475.00

The two girls that cost 650 dollars, and 625 dollars, were bought
before I shipped my first. I have a great many negroes offered to
me, but I will not pay the prices they ask, for I know they will
come down. I have no opposition in market. I will wait until I hear
from you before I buy, and then I can judge what I must pay.
Goodwin will send you the bill of lading for my negroes, as he
shipped them with his own. Write often, as the times are critical,
and it depends on the prices you get to govern me in buying. 

Yours, &c;.Mr. Theophilus Freeman, New Orleans.

G. W. BARNES.

The above was a small but choice invoice of wives and mothers.
Nine days before, namely, 7th November, Mr. Barnes advised Mr.
Freeman of having shipped a lot, of forty-three men and women.
Mr. Freeman, informing one of his correspondents of the state of
the market, writes (Sunday, 21st Sept., 1839), "I bought a boy
yesterday, sixteen years old, and likely, weighing one hundred and
ten pounds, at 700 dollars. I sold a likely girl, twelve years old, at
500 dollars. I bought a man yesterday, twenty years old, six feet
high at 820 dollars; one to-day, twenty-four years old, at 850
dollars, black and sleek as a mole."

The writer has drawn in this work only one class of the
negro-traders. There are all varieties of them, up to the great
wholesale purchasers, who keep their large trading-houses; who
are gentlemanly in manners and courteous in address; who, in
many respects, often perform actions of real generosity; who
consider slavery a very great evil, and hope the country will at
some time be delivered from it, but who think that so long as
clergyman and layman, saint and sinner, are all agreed in the
propriety and necessity of slave-holding, it is better that the
necessary trade in the article be conducted by men of humanity
and decency, than by swearing, brutal men, of the Tom Loker
school. These men are exceedingly sensitive with regard to what
they consider the injustice of the world, in excluding them from
good society, simply because they undertake to supply a demand in
the community, which the bar, the press, and the pulpit, all
pronounce to be a proper one. In this respect, society certainly
imitates the unreasonableness of the ancient Egyptians, who
employed a certain class of men to prepare dead bodies for
embalming, but flew at them with sticks and stones the moment
the operation was over, on account of the sacrilegious liberty
which they had taken. If there is an ill-used class of men in the
world, it is certainly the slave-traders; for, if there is no harm in
the institution of slavery--if it is a divinely-appointed and
honourable one, like civil government and the family state, and
like other species of property relation--then there is no earthly
reason why a man may not as innocently be a slave trader as any
other kind of trader.

CHAPTER III. MR. AND MRS. SHELBY.

IT was the design of the writer, in delineating the domestic
arrangements of Mr. and Mrs. Shelby, to show a picture of the
fairest side of slave-life, where easy indulgence and good-natured
forbearance are tempered by just discipline and religious
instruction, skilfully and judiciously imparted.

The writer did not come to her task without reading much upon
both sides of the question, and making a particular effort to collect
all the most favourable representations of slavery which she could
obtain. And, as the reader may have a curiosity to examine some of
the documents, the writer will present them quite at large. There is
no kind of danger to the world in letting the very fairest side of
slavery be seen; in fact, the horrors and barbarities which are
necessarily inherent in it are so terrible that one stands absolutely
in need of all the comfort which can be gained from incidents like
the subjoined, to save them from utter despair of human nature.
The first account is from Mr. J. K. Paulding's Letters on Slavery;
and is a letter from a Virginia planter, whom we should judge,
from his style, to be a very amiable, agreeable man, and who
probably describes very fairly the state of things on his own
domain.

DEAR SIR,--As regards the first query, which relates to the "rights
and duties of the slave," I do not know how extensive a view of
this branch of the subject is contemplated. In its simplest aspect, as
understood and acted on in Virginia, I should say that the slave is
entitled to an abundance of good plain food; to coarse but
comfortable apparel; to a warm but humble dwelling; to protection
when well, and to succour when sick; and, in return, that it is his
duty to render to his master all the service he can consistently with
perfect health, and to behave submissively and honestly. Other
remarks suggest themselves, but they will be more appropriately
introduced under different heads.

2nd. The domestic relations of master and slave.--These relations
are much misunderstood by many persons at the North, who regard
the terms as synonymous with oppressor and oppressed. Nothing
can be further from the fact. The condition of the negroes in this
State has been greatly ameliorated. The proprietors were formerly
fewer and richer than at present. Distant quarters were often kept
up to support the aristocratic mansion. They were rarely visited by
their owners; and heartless overseers, frequently changed, were
employed to manage them for a share of the crop. These men
scourged the land, and sometimes the slaves. Their tenure was but
for a year, and of course they made the most of their brief
authority. Owing to the influence of our institutions, property has
become subdivided, and most persons live on or near their estates.
There are exceptions to be sure, and particularly among wealthy
gentlemen in the towns; but these last are almost all enlightened
and humane, and alike liberal to the soil and to the slave who
cultivates it. I could point out some noble instances of patriotic
and spirited improvement among them. But, to return to the
resident proprietors: most of them have been raised on the estates;
from the older negroes they have received in infancy numberless
acts of kindness; the younger ones have not unfrequently been
their playmates (not the most suitable, I admit), and much
good-will is thus generated on both sides. In addition to this, most
men feel attached to their property; and this attachment is stronger
in the case of persons than of things. I know it, and feel it. It is true
there are harsh masters; but there are also bad husbands and bad
fathers. They are all exceptions to the rule, not the rule itself. Shall
we therefore condemn in the gross those relations, and the rights
and authority they imply, from their occasional abuse? I could
mention many instances of strong attachment on the part of the
slave, but will only adduce one or two, of which I have been the
object. It became a question whether a faithful servant, bred up
with me from boyhood, should give up his master, or his wife and
children, to whom he was affectionately attached, and most
attentive and kind. The trial was a severe one, but he determined to
break those tender ties, and remain with me. I left it entirely to his
discretion, though I would not, from considerations of interest,
have taken for him quadruple the price I should probably have
obtained. Fortunately, in the sequel, I was enabled to purchase his
family, with the exception of a daughter, happily situated; and
nothing but death shall henceforth part them. Were it put to the
test, I am convinced that many masters would receive this striking
proof of devotion. A gentleman but a day or two since informed
me of a similar, and even stronger case, afforded by one of his
slaves. As the reward of assiduous and delicate attention to a
venerated parent, in her last illness, I proposed to purchase and
liberate a healthy and intelligent woman, about thirty years of age,
the best nurse, and, in all respects, one of the best servants in the
State, of which I was only part owner; but she declined to leave the
family, and has been since rather better than free. I shall be
excused for stating a ludicrous case I heard of some time ago. A
favourite and indulged servant requested his master to sell him to
another gentleman. His master refused to do so, but told him he
was at perfect liberty to go to the North, if he were not already free
enough. After a while he repeated the request; and, on being urged
to give an explanation of his singular conduct, told his master that
he considered himself consumptive, and would soon die; and he
thought Mr. B-- was better able to bear the loss than his master. He
was sent to a medicinal spring, and recovered his health, if, indeed,
he had ever lost it, of which his master had been unapprised. It
may not be amiss to describe my deportment towards my servants,
whom I endeavour to render happy while I make them profitable. I
never turn a deaf ear, but listen patiently to their communications.
I chat familiarly with those who have passed service, or have not
begun to render it. With the others I observe a more prudent
reserve, but I encourage all to approach me without awe. I hardly
ever go to town without having commissions to execute for some
of them; and think they prefer to employ me, from a belief that, if
their money should not quite hold out, I would add a little to it;
and I not unfrequently do, in order to get a better article. The
relation between myself and my slaves is decidedly friendly. I keep
up pretty exact discipline, mingled with kindness, and hardly ever
lose property by thievish, or labour by runaway slaves. I never lock
the outer doors of my house. It is done, but done by the servants;
and I rarely bestow a thought on the matter. I leave home
periodically for two months, and commit the dwelling-house,
plate, and other valuables, to the servants, without even an
enumeration of the articles.

3rd. The duration of the labour of the slave.--The day is usually
considered long enough. Employment at night is not exacted by
me, except to shell corn once a week for their own consumption,
and on a few other extraordinary occasions. The people, as we
generally call them, are required to leave their houses at daybreak,
and to work until dark, with the intermission of half an hour to an
hour at breakfast, and one to two hours at dinner, according to the
season and sort of work. In this respect I suppose our negroes will
bear a favourable comparison with any labourers whatever.

4th. The liberty usually allowed the slave--his holidays and
amusements, and the way in which they usually spend their
evenings and holidays.--They are prohibited from going off the
estate without first obtaining leave; though they often transgress,
and with impunity, except in flagrant cases. Those who have wives
on other plantations visit them on certain specified nights, and
have an allowance of time for going and returning, proportioned to
the distance. My negroes are permitted, and indeed, encouraged, to
raise as many ducks and chickens as they can; to cultivate
vegetables for their own use, and a patch of corn for sale; to
exercise their trades, when they possess one, which many do; to
catch muskrats and other animals for the fur or the flesh; to raise
bees; and, in fine, to earn an honest penny in any way which
chance or their own ingenuity may offer. The modes specified are,
however, those most commonly resorted to, and enable provident
servants to make from five to thirty dollars a-piece. The corn is a
different sort from that which I cultivate, and is all bought by me.
A great many fowls are raised; I have this year known ten dollars'
worth sold by one man at one time. One of the chief sources of
profit is the fur of the muskrat; for the purpose of catching which
the marshes on the estate have been parcelled out and appropriated
from time immemorial, and held by a tenure little short of
fee-simple. The negroes are indebted to Nat Turner* and Tappan
for a curtailment of some of their privileges. As a sincere friend to
the blacks, I have much regretted the reckless interference of these
persons, on account of the restrictions it has become, or been
thought, necessary to impose. Since the exploit of the former hero,
they have been forbidden to preach, except to their fellow slaves,
the property of the same owner; to have public funerals, unless a
white person officiates; or to be taught to read and write. Their
funerals formerly gave them great satisfaction, and it was
customary here to furnish the relations of the deceased with bacon,
spirit, flour, sugar, and butter, with which a grand entertainment,
in their way, was got up. We were once much amused by a hearty
fellow requesting his mistress to let him have his funeral during
his lifetime, when it would do him some good. The waggish
request was granted; and I venture to say there never was a funeral
the subject of which enjoyed it so much. When permitted, some of
our negroes preached with great fluency. I was present a few years
since, when an Episcopal minister addressed the people, by
appointment. On the conclusion of an excellent sermon, a negro
preacher rose and thanked the gentleman kindly for his discourse,
but frankly told him the congregation "did not understand his
lingo." He then proceeded himself, with great vehemence and
volubility, coining words where they had not been made to his
hand, or rather his tongue, and impressing his hearers, doubtless,
with a decided opinion of his superiority over his white
co-labourer in the field of grace. My brother and I, who own
contiguous estates, have lately erected a chapel on the line
between them, and have employed an acceptable minister of the
Baptist persuasion, to which the negroes almost exclusively
belong, to afford them religious instruction. Except as a
preparatory step to emancipation, I consider it exceedingly
impolitic, even as regards the slaves themselves, to permit them to
read and write: "Where ignorance is bliss, `tis folly to be wise."
And it is certainly impolitic as regards their masters, on the
principle that "knowledge is power." My servants have not as long
holidays as those of most other persons. I allow three days at
Christmas, and at each of three other periods, besides a little time
to work their patches; or, if very busy, I sometimes prefer to work
them myself. Most of the ancient pastimes have been lost in this
neighbourhood, and religion, mock or real, has succeeded them.
The banjo, their national instrument, is known but in name or in a
few of the tunes which have survived. Some of the younger
negroes sing and dance, but the evenings and holidays are usually
occupied in working, in visiting, and in praying and singing
hymns. The primitive customs and sports are, I believe, better
preserved further south, where slaves were brought from Africa
long after they ceased to come here.

6th. The provision usually made for their food and clothing, for
those who are too young or too old to labour.--My men receive
twelve quarts of Indian meal (the abundant and universal
allowance in this State), seven salted herrings, and two pounds of
smoked bacon or three pounds of pork, a-week; the other hands
proportionally less. But, generally speaking, their food is issued
daily, with the exception of meal, and consists of fish or bacon for
breakfast, and meat, fresh or salted, with vegetables whenever we
can provide them, for dinner; or for a month or two in the spring,
fresh fish cooked with a little bacon. This mode is rather more
expensive to me than that of weekly rations, but more comfortable
to the servants. Superannuated or invalid slaves draw their
provisions regularly once a-week; and the moment a child ceases
to be nourished by its mother, it receives eight quarts of meal
(more than it can consume) and one half-pound of lard. Besides
the food furnished by me, nearly all the servants are able to make
some addition from their private stores; and there is among the
adults hardly an instance of one so improvident as not to do it. He
must be an unthrifty fellow, indeed, who cannot realise the wish of
the famous Henry IV. in regard to the French peasantry, and enjoy
his fowl on Sunday. I always keep on hand, for the use of  the
negroes, sugar, molasses, &c;., which, though not regularly issued,
are applied for on the slightest pretexts, and frequently no pretext
at all, and are never refused except in cases of misconduct. In
regard to clothing: the men and boys receive a winter coat and
trousers of strong cloth, three shirts, a stout pair of shoes and
socks, and a pair of summer pantaloons, every year; a hat about
every second year, and a great-coat and blanket every third year.
Instead of great-coats and hats, the women have large capes to
protect the bust in bad weather, and handkerchiefs for the head.
The articles furnished are good and serviceable; and, with their
own acquisitions, make their appearance decent and respectable.
On Sunday these are even fine. The aged and invalid are clad as
regularly as the rest, but less substantially. Mothers receive a little
raw cotton, in proportion to the number of children, with the
privilege of having the yarn, when spun, woven at my expense. I
provide them with blankets. Orphans are put with careful women,
and treated with tenderness. I am attached to the little slaves, and
encourage familiarity among them. Sometimes, when I ride near
the quarters, they come running after me with the most whimsical
requests, and are rendered happy by the distribution of some little
donation. The clothing described is that which is given to the crop
hands. Home-servants, a numerous class in Virginia, are of course
clad in a different and very superior manner. I neglected to
mention, in the proper place, that there are on each of my
plantations a kitchen, an oven, and one or more cooks; and that
each hand is furnished with a tin bucket for his food, which is
carried into the field by little negroes, who also supply the
labourers with water.

6th. Their treatment when sick.--My negroes go, or are carried, as
soon as they are attacked, to a spacious and well-ventilated
hospital, near the mansion-house. They are there received by an
attentive nurse, who has an assortment of medicine, additional
bed-clothing, and the command of as much light food as she may
require, either from the table or the store-room of the proprietor.
Wine, sago, rice, and other little comforts appertaining to such an
establishment, are always kept on hand. The condition of the sick
is much better than that of the poor whites or free coloured people
in the neighbourhood.

7th. Their rewards and punishments.--I occasionally bestow little
gratuities for good conduct, and particularly after harvest; and
hardly ever refuse a favour asked by those who faithfully perform
their duty. Vicious and idle servants are punished with stripes,
moderately inflicted; to which, in the case of theft, is added
privation of meat, a severe punishment to those who are never
suffered to be without it on any other account. From my limited
observation, I think that servants to the North work much harder
than our slaves. I was educated at a college in one of the free
States, and, on my return to Virginia, was struck with the contrast.
I was astonished at the number of idle domestics, and actually
worried my mother, much to my contrition since, to reduce the
establishment: I say to my contrition, because, after eighteen years'
residence in the good Old Dominion, I find myself surrounded by a
troop of servants about as numerous as that against which I
formerly so loudly exclaimed. While on this subject it may not be
amiss to state a case of manumission which occurred about three
years since. My nearest neighbour, a man of immense wealth,
owned a favourite servant, a fine fellow, with polished manners
and excellent disposition, who reads and writes, and is thoroughly
versed in the duties of a  butler and housekeeper, in the
performance of which he was trusted without limit. This man was,
on the death of his master, emancipated with a legacy of 6,000
dollars, besides about 2,000 dollars more which he had been
permitted to accumulate, and had deposited with his master, who
had given him credit for it. The use that this man, apparently so
well qualified for freedom, and who has had an opportunity of
travelling and of judging for himself, makes of his money and his
time, is somewhat remarkable. In consequence of his exemplary
conduct, he has been permitted to reside in the State, and for very
moderate wages occupies the same situation he did in the old
establishment, and will probably continue to occupy it as long as
he lives. He has no children of his own, but has put a little girl, a
relation of his, to school. Except in this instance, and in the
purchase of a few plain articles of furniture, his freedom and his
money seem not much to have benefited him. A servant of mine
who is intimate with him, thinks he is not as happy as he was
before his liberation. Several other servants were freed at the same
time, with smaller legacies, but I do not know what has become of
them.

I do not regard negro slavery, however mitigated, as a Utopian
system, and have not intended so to delineate it. But it exists, and
the difficulty of removing it is felt and acknowledged by all, save
the fanatics, who, like "fools, rush in where angels dare not tread."
It is pleasing to know that its burdens are not too heavy to be
borne. That the treatment of slaves in this State is humane, and
even indulgent, may be inferred from the fact of their rapid
increase and great longevity. I believe that, constituted as they are,
morally and physically, they are as happy as any peasantry in the
world; and I venture to affirm, as the result of my reading and
inquiry, that in no country are the labourers so liberally and
invariably supplied with bread and meat as are the negro slaves of
the United States. However great the dearth of provisions, famine
never reaches them.

P.S. It might have been stated above that on this estate there are
about one hundred and sixty blacks. With the exception of infants,
there has been, in eighteen months, but one death, that I
remember--that of a man fully sixty-five years of age. The bill for
medical attendance, from the second day of last November,
comprising upwards of a year, is less than forty dollars.

The following accounts are taken from "Ingraham's Travels in the
South-west," a work which seems to have been written as much to
show the beauties of slavery as anything else. Speaking of the state
of things on some Southern plantations, he gives the following
pictures, which are presented without note or comment:

The little candidates for "field honours" are useless articles on a
plantation during the first five or six years of their existence. They
are then to take their first lesson in the elementary part of their
education. When they have learned their manual alphabet tolerably
well, they are placed in the field to take a spell at cotton-picking.
The first day in the field is their proudest day. The young negroes
look forward to it with as much restlessness and impatience as
school-boys to a vacation. Black children are not put to work so
young as many children of poor parents in the North. It is often the
case that the children of the domestic servants become pets in the
house and the playmates of the white children of the family. No
scene can be  livelier or more interesting to a Northerner, than that
which the negro quarters of a well-regulated plantation present on
a Sabbath morning, just before church hours. In every cabin the
men are shaving and dressing; the women, arrayed in their gay
muslins, are arranging their frizzly hair--in which they take no
little pride--or investigating the condition of their children; the old
people. neatly clothed, are quietly conversing or smoking about the
doors; and those of the younger portion who are not undergoing
the infliction of the wash-tub are enjoying themselves in the shade
of the trees, or around some little pond, with as much zest as
though slavery and freedom were synonymous terms. When all are
dressed, and the hour arrives for worship, they lock up their cabins,
and the whole population of the little village proceeds to chapel,
where divine service is performed, sometimes by an officiating
clergyman, and often by the planter himself, if a church member.
The whole plantation is also frequently formed into a Sabbath
class, which is instructed by the planter, or some member of his
family; and often, such is the anxiety of the master that they should
perfectly understand what they are taught--a hard matter in the
present state of their intellect--that no means calculated to advance
their progress are left untried. I was not long since shown a
manuscript catechism, drawn up with great care and judgment by a
distinguished planter, on a plan admirably adapted to the
comprehension of the negroes.

It is now popular to treat slaves with kindness; and those planters
who are known to be inhumanly rigorous to their slaves are
scarcely countenanced by the more intelligent and humane portion
of the community. Such instances, however, are very rare; but
there are unprincipled men everywhere, who will give vent to their
ill-feelings and bad passions, not with less good-will upon the back
of an indented apprentice than upon that of a purchased slave.
Private chapels are now introduced upon most of the plantations of
the more wealthy, which are far from any church; Sabbath-schools
are instituted for the black children, and Bible-classes for the
parents, which are superintended by the planter, a chaplain, or
some of the female members of the family.

Nor are planters indifferent to the comfort of their grey-headed
slaves. I have been much affected at beholding many exhibitions
of their kindly feeling towards them. They always address them in
a mild and pleasant manner, as "Uncle," or "Aunty," titles as
peculiar to the old negro and negress as "boy" and "girl" to all
under forty years of age. Some old Africans are allowed to spend
their last years in their houses, without doing any kind of labour;
these, if not too infirm, cultivate little patches of ground, on which
they raise a few vegetables--for vegetables grow nearly all the year
round in this climate--and make a little money to purchase a few
extra comforts. They are also always receiving presents from their
masters and mistresses, and the negroes on the estate, the latter of
whom are extremely desirous of seeing the old people
comfortable. A relation of the extra comforts which some planters
allow their slaves would hardly obtain credit at the North. But you
must recollect that Southern planters are men, and men of feeling,
generous and high-minded, and possessing as much of the "milk of
human kindness" as the sons of colder climes--although they may
have been educated to regard that as right which a different
education has led Northerners to consider wrong.

With regard to the character of Mrs. Shelby, the writer must say a
few words. While travelling in Kentucky, a few years  since, some
pious ladies expressed to her the same sentiments with regard to
slavery which the reader has heard expressed by Mrs. Shelby.

There are many whose natural sense of justice cannot be made to
tolerate the enormities of the system, even though they hear it
defended by clergymen from the pulpit, and see it countenanced by
all that is most honourable in rank and wealth.

A pious lady said to the author, with regard to instructing her
slaves, "I am ashamed to teach them what is right; I know that they
know as well as I do that it is wrong to hold them as slaves, and I
am ashamed to look them in the face." Pointing to an intelligent
mulatto woman who passed through the room, she continued,
"Now, there's B--: she is as intelligent and capable as any white
woman I ever knew, and as well able to have her liberty and take
care of herself; and she knows it isn't right to keep her as we do,
and I know it too; and yet I cannot get my husband to think as I do,
or I should be glad to set them free."

A venerable friend of the writer, a lady born and educated a
slaveholder, used to the writer the very words attributed to Mrs.
Shelby: "I never thought it was right to hold slaves. I always
thought it was wrong when I was a girl, and I thought so still more
when I came to join the church." An incident related by this friend
of her examination for the church, shows in a striking manner what
a difference may often exist between theoretical and practical
benevolence.

A certain class of theologians in New England have advocated the
doctrine of disinterested benevolence with such zeal, as to make it
an imperative article of belief, that every individual ought to be
willing to endure everlasting misery, if by doing so they could, on
the whole, produce a greater amount of general good in the
universe; and the inquiry was sometimes made of candidates for
church-membership, whether they could bring themselves to this
point as a test of their sincerity. The clergyman who was to
examine this lady, was particularly interested in these
speculations. When he came to inquire of her with regard to her
views as to the obligations of Christianity, she informed him
decidedly that she had brought her mind to the point of
emancipating all her slaves, of whom she had a large number. The
clergyman seemed rather to consider this as an excess of zeal, and
recommended that she should take time to reflect upon it. He was,
however, very urgent to know whether, if it should appear for the
greatest good of the universe, she would be willing to be damned.
Entirely unaccustomed to theological speculations, the good
woman answered, with some vehemence, that "she was sure she
was not;" adding, naturally enough, that if that had been her
purpose, she need not have come to join the church. The good
lady, however, was admitted, and proved her devotion to the
general good by the more tangible method of setting all her slaves
at liberty, and carefully watching over their education and interests
after they were liberated.

Mrs. Shelby is a fair type of the very best class of Southern
women; and while the evils of the institution are felt and deplored,
and while the world looks with just indignation on the national
support and patronage which is given to it, and on the men who,
knowing its nature, deliberately make efforts to perpetuate and
extend it, it is but justice that it should bear in mind the virtues of
such persons.

Many of them, surrounded by circumstances over which they can
have no control, perplexed by domestic cares, of which women in
free States can have very little conception, loaded down by duties
and responsibilities which wear upon the very springs of life, still
go on bravely and patiently from day to day, doing all they can to
alleviate what they cannot prevent, and, as far as the sphere of
their own immediate power extends, rescuing those who are
dependent upon them from the evils of the system.

We read of Him who shall at last come to judgment, that "His fan
is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather
his wheat into the garner." Out of the great abyss of national sin he
will rescue every grain of good and honest purpose and intention.
His eyes, which are as a flame of fire, penetrate at once those
intricate mazes where human judgment is lost, and will save and
honour at last the truly good and sincere, however they may have
been involved with the evil; and such souls as have resisted the
greatest temptations, and persisted in good under the most
perplexing circumstances, are those of whom he has written, "And
they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I
make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his
own son that serveth him."

CHAPTER IV.  GEORGE HARRIS.

THE character of George Harris has been represented as
overdrawn, both as respects personal qualities and general
intelligence. It has been said, too, that so many afflictive incidents
happening to a slave are improbable, and present a distorted view
of the institution.

In regard to person, it must be remembered that the half- breeds
often inherit, to a great degree, the traits of their white ancestors.
For this there is abundant evidence in the advertisements of the
papers. Witness the following from the Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Gazette, October 5th, 1852.

500 DOLLARS REWARD.

Run away from the subscriber, on the 25th May, a VERY BRIGHT
MULATTO BOY, about 20 or 22 years old, named WASH. Said
boy, without close observation, might pass himself for a white
man, as he is very bright--has sandy hair, blue eyes, and a fine set
of teeth. He is an excellent bricklayer; but I have no idea that he
will pursue his trade, for fear of detection. Although he is like a
white man in appearance, he has the disposition of a negro, and
delights in comic songs and witty expressions. He is an excellent
house servant, very handy about a hotel--tall, slender, and has
rather a down look, especially when spoken to, and is sometimes
inclined to be sulky. I have no doubt that he has been decoyed off
by some scoundrel, and I will give the above reward for the
apprehension of the boy and thief, if delivered at Chattanooga. Or,
I will give 200 dollars for the boy alone; or 100 dollars if confined
in any jail in the United States, so that I can get him.

GEORGE O. RAGLAND.

Chattanooga, June 15, 1852.

From the Capitolian Vis-…-vis, West Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
November 1, 1852:

150 DOLLARS REWARD.

Run away about the 15th of August last, Joe, a yellow man; small,
about 5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, and about twenty years of age. Has
a Roman nose, was raised in New Orleans, and speaks French and
English. He was bought last winter of Mr. Digges, Banks Arcade,
New Orleans

In regard to general intelligence, the reader will recollect that the
writer stated it as a fact which she learned while on a journey
through Kentucky, that a young coloured man invented a machine
for cleaning hemp, like that alluded to in her story.

Advertisements, also, occasionally propose for sale artisans of
different descriptions. Slaves are often employed as pilots for
vessels, and highly valued for their skill and knowledge. The
following are advertisements from recent newspapers.

From the South Carolinian (Columbia), December 4th, 1852.

VALUABLE NEGROES AT AUCTION.
BY J. AND L. T. LEVIN.

WILL be Sold, on MONDAY, the 6th Day of December, the
following valuable NEGROES:--

Andrew, 24 years of age, a bricklayer and plasterer, and thorough
workman.

George, 22 years of age, one of the best barbers in the State.

James, 19 years of age, an excellent painter.

These boys were raised in Columbia, and are exceptions to most of
boys, and are sold for no fault whatever.

The terms of sale are one-half cash, the balance on a credit of six
months, with interest, for notes payable at bank, with two or more
approved endorsers.

Purchasers to pay for necessary papers.

WILLIAM DOUGLASS.

November 27, 36.

From the same paper of November 18th, 1852.

Will be sold at private sale, a LIKELY MAN, boat hand, and good
pilot; is well acquainted with all the inlets between here and
Savannah and Georgetown.

With regard to the incidents of George Harris's life, that he may
not be supposed a purely exceptional case, we propose to offer
some parallel facts from the lives of slaves of our personal
acquaintance.

Lewis Clark is an acquaintance of the writer. Soon after his escape
from slavery, he was received into the family of a sister-in-law of
the author, and there educated. His conduct during this time was
such as to win for him uncommon affection and respect, and the
author has frequently heard him spoken of in the highest terms by
all who knew him.

The gentleman in whose family he so long resided, says of him, in
a recent letter to the writer, "I would trust him, as the saying is,
with untold gold."

Lewis is a quadroon, a fine-looking man, with European features,
hair slightly wavy, and with an intelligent, agreeable expression of
countenance.
19

The reader is now desired to compare the following incidents of
his life, part of which he related personally to the author, with the
incidents of the life of George Harris.

His mother was a handsome quadroon woman, the daughter of her
master, and given by him in marriage to a free white man, a
Scotchman, with the express understanding that she and her
children were to be free. This engagement, if made sincerely at all,
was never complied with. His mother had nine children, and on the
death of her husband, came back, with all these children, as slaves
in her father's house.

A married daughter of the family, who was the dread of the whole
household, on account of the violence of her temper, had taken
from the family, upon her marriage, a young girl. By the violence
of her abuse she soon reduced the child to a state of idiocy, and
then came imperiously back to her father's establishment,
declaring that the child was good for nothing, and that she would
have another, and, as poor Lewis' evil star would have it, fixed her
eye upon him.

To avoid one of her terrible outbreaks of temper, the family
offered up this boy as a pacificatory sacrifice. The incident is thus
described by Lewis, in a published narrative:--

Every boy was ordered in, to pass before this female sorceress, that
she might select a victim for her unprovoked malice, on whom to
pour the vials of her wrath for years. I was that unlucky fellow. Mr.
Campbell, my grandfather, objected, because it would divide a
family, and offered her Moses; * * * but objections and claims of
every kind were swept away by the wild passion and shrill-toned
voice of Mrs. B. Me she would have, and none else. Mr. Campbell
went out to hunt, and drive away bad thoughts; the old lady
became quiet, for she was sure none of her blood ran in my veins,
and if there was any of her husband's there, it was no fault of hers.
Slave-holding women are always revengeful toward the children of
slaves that have any of the blood of their husbands in them. I was
too young--only seven years of age--to understand what was going
on. But my poor and affectionate mother understood and
appreciated it all. When she left the kitchen of the mansion-house,
where she was employed as cook, and came home to her own little
cottage, the tear of anguish was in her eye, and the image of
sorrow upon every feature of her face. She knew the female Nero
whose rod was now to be over me. That night sleep departed from
her eyes. With the youngest child clasped firmly to her bosom, she
spent the night in walking the floor, coming ever and anon to lift
up the clothes and look at me and my poor brother, who lay
sleeping together. Sleeping, I said. Brother slept, but not I. I saw
my mother when she first came to me, and I could not sleep. The
vision of that night--its deep, ineffaceable impression--is now
before my mind with all the distinctness of yesterday. In the
morning I was put into the carriage with Mrs. B. and her children,
and my weary pilgrimage of suffering was fairly begun.

Mrs. Banton is a character that can only exist where the laws of the
land clothe with absolute power the coarsest, most brutal and
violent-tempered, equally with the most generous and humane.

If irresponsible power is a trial to the virtue of the most watchful
and careful, how fast must it develope cruelty in those who are
naturally violent and brutal!

This woman was united to a drunken husband, of a temper equally
ferocious. A recital of all the physical torture which this pair
contrived to inflict on a hapless child, some of which have left
ineffaceable marks on his person, would be too trying to humanity,
and we gladly draw a veil over it.

Some incidents, however, are presented in the following extracts:--

A very trivial offence was sufficient to call forth a great burst of
indignation from this woman of ungoverned passions. In my
simplicity, I put my lips to the same vessel, and drank out of it,
from which her children were accustomed to drink. She expressed
her utter abhorrence of such an act by throwing my head violently
back, and dashing into my face two dippers of water. The shower
of water was followed by a heavier shower of kicks; but the words,
bitter and cutting, that followed, were like a storm of hail upon my
young heart. "She would teach me better manners than that; she
would let me know I was to be brought up to her hand; she would
have one slave that knew his place; if I wanted water, go to the
spring, and not drink there in the house." This was new times for
me; for some days I was completely benumbed with my sorrow.

* * * * *

If there be one so lost to all feeling as even to say that the slaves
do not suffer when families are separated, let such a one go to the
ragged quilt which was my couch and pillow, and stand there night
after night, for long, weary hours, and see the bitter tears streaming
down the face of that more than orphan boy, while with
half-suppressed sighs and sobs he calls again and again upon his
absent mother.

"Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit
o'er thy sorrowing son? Wretch even then! life's journey just
begun."

He was employed till late at night in spinning flax or rocking the
baby, and called at a very early hour in the morning; and if he did
not start at the first summons, a cruel chastisement was sure to
follow. He says:--

Such horror has seized me, lest I might not hear the first shrill call,
that I have often in dreams fancied I heard that unwelcome voice,
and have leaped from my couch and walked through the house and
out of it before I awoke. I have gone and called the other slaves, in
my sleep, and asked them if they did not hear master call. Never,
while I live, will the remembrance of those long bitter nights of
fear pass from my mind.

He adds to these words which should be deeply pondered by those
who lay the flattering unction to their souls that the oppressed do
not feel the sundering of family ties.

But all my severe labour, and bitter and cruel punishments, for
these ten years of captivity with this worse than Arab family, all
these were as nothing to the sufferings I experienced by being
separated from my mother, brothers, and sisters; the same things,
with them near to sympathise with me, to hear my story of sorrow,
would have been comparatively tolerable.

They were distant only about thirty miles, and yet, in ten long
lonely years of childhood, I was only permitted to see them three
times.

My mother occasionally found an opportunity to send me some
token of remembrance and affection--a sugar-plum or an apple;
but I scarcely ever ate them; they were laid up, and handled, and
wept over, till they wasted away in my hand.

My thoughts continually by day, and my dreams by night, were of
mother and home; and the horror experienced in the morning,
when I awoke and behold it was a dream, is beyond the power of
language to describe.

Lewis had a beautiful sister by the name of Delia, who, on the
death of her grandfather, was sold, with all the other children of
his mother, for the purpose of dividing the estate. She was a pious
girl, a member of the Baptist church. She fell into the hands of a
brutal, drunken man, who wished to make her his mistress. Milton
Clark, a brother of Lewis, in the narrative of his life, describes the
scene where he, with his mother, stood at the door while this girl
was brutally whipped before it for wishing to conform to the
principles of her Christian profession. As her resolution was
unconquerable, she was placed in a coffle and sent down to the
New Orleans market. Here she was sold to a Frenchman named
Coval; he took her to Mexico, emancipated and married her. After
residing some time in France and the West Indies with him, he
died, leaving her a fortune of twenty or thirty thousand dollars. At
her death she endeavoured to leave this by will to purchase the
freedom of her brothers; but, as a slave cannot take property, or
even have it left in trust for him, they never received any of it.

The incidents of the recovery of Lewis' freedom are thus told:--

I had long thought and dreamed of LIBERTY; I was now
determined to make an effort to gain it. No tongue can tell the
doubt, the perplexities, the anxiety, which a slave feels when
making up his mind upon this subject. If he makes an effort and is
not successful, he must be laughed at by his fellows, he will be
beaten unmercifully by the master, and then watched and used the
harder for it all his life.

And then, if he gets away, who, what will he find? He is ignorant
of the world. All the white part of mankind that he has ever seen
are enemies to him and all his kindred. How can he venture where
none but white faces shall greet him? The master tells him that
abolitionists decoy slaves off into the free States to catch them and
sell them to Louisiana or Mississippi; and, if he goes to Canada,
the British will put him in a mine under ground, with both eyes put
out, for life. How does he know what or whom to believe? A
horror of great darkness comes upon him, as he thinks over what
may befall him. Long, very long time did I think of escaping
before I made the effort.

At length the report was started that I was to be sold for Louisiana.
Then I thought it was time to act. My mind was made up.

* * * * * * * * *

What my feelings were when I reached the free shore can be better
imagined than described. I trembled all over with deep emotion,
and I could feel my hair rise up on my head. I was on what was
called a free soil, among a people who had no slaves. I saw white
men at work, and no slave smarting beneath the lash. Everything
was indeed new and wonderful. Not knowing where to find a
friend, and being ignorant of the country, unwilling to inquire lest I
should betray my ignorance, it was a whole week before I reached
Cincinnati. At one place where I put up, I had a great many more
questions put to me than I wished to answer. At another place I
was very much annoyed by the officiousness of the landlord, who
made it a point to supply every guest with newspapers. I took the
copy handed me, and turned it over in a somewhat awkward
manner, I suppose. He came to me to point out a veto, or some
other very important news. I thought it best to decline his
assistance, and gave up the paper, saying my eyes were not in a fit
condition to read much.

At another place, the neighbours, on learning that a Kentuckian
was at the tavern, came in great earnestness to find out what my
business was. Kentuckians sometimes came there to kidnap their
citizens. They were in the habit of watching them close. I at length
satisfied them by assuring them that I was not, nor my father
before me, any slaveholder at all; but, lest their suspicions should
be excited in another direction, I added my grandfather was a
slaveholder.

* * * * * * * * *

At daylight we were in Canada. When I stepped ashore here, I said,
Sure enough I AM FREE. Good Heavens! what a sensation, when
it first visits the bosoms of a full-grown man; one born to bondage;
one who had been taught from early infancy that this was his
inevitable lot for life! Not till then did I dare to cherish for a
moment the feeling that one of the limbs of my body was my own.
The slaves often say, when cut in the hand or foot, "Plague on the
old foot," or "the old hand! It is master's, let him take care of it;
nigger don't care if he never get well." My hands, my feet were
now my own.

It will be recollected that George, in conversing with Eliza, gives
an account of a scene in which he was violently beaten by his
master's young son. This incident was suggested by the following
letter from John M. Nelson to Mr. Theodore Weld, given in
Slavery as It is, p. 51.

Mr. Nelson removed from Virginia to Highland County, Ohio,
many years since, where he is extensively known and respected.
The letter is dated January 3rd, 1839.

I was born and raised in Augusta County, Virginia; my father was
an elder in the Presbyterian church, and was "owner" of about
twenty slaves; he was what was generally termed a "good master."
His slaves were generally tolerably well fed and clothed, and not
over-worked; they were sometimes permitted to attend church, and
called in to family worship; few of them, however, availed
themselves of these privileges. On some occasions I have seen him
whip them severely, particularly for the crime of trying to obtain
their liberty, or for what was called "running away." For this they
were scourged more severely than for anything else. After they
have been retaken, I have seen them stripped naked and suspended
by the hands, sometimes to a tree, sometimes to a post, until their
toes barely touched the ground, and whipped with a cowhide until
the blood dripped from their backs. A boy named Jack,
particularly, I have seen served in this way more than once. When I
was quite a child, I recollect it grieved me very much to see one
tied up to be whipped, and I used to intercede with tears in their
behalf, and mingle my cries with theirs, and feel almost willing to
take part of the punishment; I have been severely rebuked by my
father for this kind of sympathy. Yet, such is the hardening nature
of such scenes, that from this kind of commiseration for the
suffering slave I became so blunted that I could not only witness
their stripes with composure, but myself inflict them, and that
without remorse. One case I have often looked back to with sorrow
and contrition, particularly since I have been convinced that
"negroes are men." When I was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of
age, I undertook to correct a young fellow named Ned, for some
supposed offence, I think it was leaving a bridle out of its proper
place; he, being larger and stronger than myself, took hold of my
arms and held me, in order to prevent my striking him. This I
considered the height of insolence, and cried for help, when my
father and mother both came running to my rescue. My father
stripped and tied him, and took him into the orchard, where
switches were plenty, and directed me to whip him; when one
switch wore out, he supplied me with others. After I had whipped
him a while, he fell on his knees to implore forgiveness, and I
kicked him in the face; my father said, "Don't kick him, but whip
him;" this I did until his back was literally covered with welts. I
know I have repented, and trust I have obtained pardon for these
things.

My father owned a woman we used to call Aunt Grace; she was
purchased in Old Virginia. She has told me that her old master, in
his will, gave her her freedom, but at his death his sons had sold
her to my father. When he bought her she manifested some
unwillingness to go with him; when she was put in irons and taken
by force. This was before I was born; but I remember to have seen
the irons, and was told that was what they had been used for. Aunt
Grace is still living, and must be between seventy and eighty years
of age; she has, for the last forty years, been an exemplary
Christian. When I was a youth, I took some pains to learn her to
read; this is now a great consolation to her. Since age and infirmity
have rendered her of little value to her "owners," she is permitted
to read as much as she pleases; this she can do, with the aid of
glasses, in the old family Bible, which is almost the only book she
has ever looked into. This, with some little mending for the black
children, is all she does; she is still held as a slave. I well
remember what a heart-rending scene there was in the family when
my father sold her husband; this was, I suppose, thirty-five years
ago. And yet my father was considered one of the best of masters. I
know of few who were better, but of many who were worse.

With regard to the intelligence of George, and his teaching himself
to read and write, there is a most interesting and affecting parallel
to it in the "Life of Frederick Douglass"--a book which can be
recommended to anyone who has a curiosity to trace the workings
of an intelligent and active mind through all the squalid misery,
degradation and oppression, of slavery. A few incidents will be
given.

Like Clark, Douglass was the son of a white man. He was a
plantation slave in a proud old family; his situation, probably, may
be considered as an average one; that is to say, he led a life of dirt,
degradation, discomfort of various kinds, made tolerable as a
matter of daily habit, and considered as enviable in comparison
with the lot of those who suffer worse abuse. An incident which
Douglass relates of his mother is touching; he states that it is
customary at an early age to separate mothers from their children,
for the purpose of blunting and deadening natural affection. When
he was three years old his mother was sent to work on a plantation
eight or ten miles distant, and after that he never saw her except in
the night. After her day's toil she would occasionally walk over to
her child, lie down with him in her arms, hush him to sleep in her
bosom, then rise up and walk back again to be ready for her
field-work by daylight. Now, we ask the highest-born lady in
England or America, who is a mother, whether this does not show
that this poor field-labourer had in her bosom, beneath her dirt and
rags, a true mother's heart?

The last and bitterest indignity which had been heaped on the head
of the unhappy slaves has been the denial to them of those holy
affections which God gives alike to all. We are told, in fine phrase,
by languid ladies of fashion, that "it is not to be supposed that
those creatures have the same feelings that we have," when,
perhaps, the very speaker could not endure one tithe of the fatigue
and suffering which the slave-mother often bears for her child.
Every mother who has a mother's heart within her ought to know
that this is blasphemy against nature, and, standing between the
cradle of her living and the grave of her dead child, should
indignantly reject such a slander on all motherhood.

Douglass thus relates the account of his learning to read, after he
had been removed to the situation of house-servant in Baltimore.
It seems that his mistress, newly-married and unaccustomed to the
management of slaves, was very kind to him, and, amongst other
acts of kindness, commenced teaching him to read. His master,
discovering what was going on, he says,

At once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her,
among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to
teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If
you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell. A nigger should know
nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning
would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you
teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be
no keeping him. It would for ever unfit him to be a slave. He
would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his
master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of
harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." These words
sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay
slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of
thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and
mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had
struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been
to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power
to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized
it highly. From that moment I understood the pathway from slavery
to freedom.

After this, his mistress was as watchful to prevent his learning to
read as she had before been to instruct him. His course after this he
thus describes:--

From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a separate
room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected
of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of
myself; all this, however, was too late--the first step had been
taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the
inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell.

The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most
successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys
whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could I converted
into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and
in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I
was sent of errands I always took my book with me, and by going
one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before
my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which
was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome, for I
was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white
children in our neighbourhood. This bread I used to bestow upon
the poor hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that
more valuable bread of knowledge. I am strongly tempted to give
the names of two or three of those little boys, as a testimonial of
the gratitude and affection I bear them, but prudence forbids; not
that it would injure me, but it might embarrass them, for it is
almost an unpardonable offence to teach slaves to read in this
Christian country. It is enough to say of the dear little fellows, that
they lived in Philpot-street, very near Durgin and Bailey's
ship-yard. I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them. I
would sometimes say to them, I wished I could be free as they
would be when they got to be men. "You will be free as soon as
you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life! Have not I as good a
right to be free as you have?" These words used to trouble them;
they would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and console me
with the hope that something would occur by which I might be
free.

I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave
for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time I
got hold of a book entitled the "Columbian Orator." Every
opportunity I got I used to read this book. Among much of other
interesting matter, I found in it a dialogue between a master and
his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his
master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation
which took place between them when the slave was retaken the
third time. In this dialogue the whole argument in behalf of slavery
was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of
by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as
impressive things in reply to his master-- things which had the
desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in
the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master.

In the same book I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on
and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice
documents to me. I read them over and over again, with unabated
interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul,
which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for
want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue
was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder.
What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and
a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these
documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the
arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they
relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another still more
painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the
more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard
them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had
left their homes and gone to Africa and stolen us from our homes,
and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being
the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and
contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which
Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had
already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish.
As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read
had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of
my wretched condition without the remedy. It opened my eyes to
the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In
moments of agony I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity. I
have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the
meanest reptile to my own: anything, no matter what, to get rid of
thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that
tormented me: there was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon
me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate.
The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal
wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more for
ever. It was heard in every sound and seen in every thing. It was
ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition.
I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it,
and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it
smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every
storm.

I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing
myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt
but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I
should have been killed. While in this state of mind I was eager to
hear any one speak of slavery. I was a ready listener. Every little
while I could hear something about the abolitionists. It was some
time before I found what the word meant. It was always used in
such connexions as to make it an interesting word to me. If a slave
ran away and succeeded in getting clear, or if a slave killed his
master, set fire to a barn, or did anything very wrong in the mind
of a slave-holder, it was spoken of as the fruit of abolition. Hearing
the word in this connexion very often, I set about learning what it
meant. The dictionary afforded me little or no help. I found it was
"the act of abolishing;" but then I did not know what was to be
abolished. Here I was perplexed. I did not care to ask anyone about
its meaning, for I was satisfied that it was something they wanted
me to know very little about. After a patient waiting, I got one of
our city papers, containing an account of the number of petitions
from the North praying for the abolition of slavery in the District
of Columbia, and of the slave-trade between the States. From this
time I understood the words abolition and abolitionist, and always
drew near when that word was spoken, expecting to hear
something of importance to myself and fellow- slaves. The light
broke in upon me by degrees. I went one day down on the wharf of
Mr. Waters, and seeing two Irishmen unloading a scow of stone, I
went, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished, one of
them came to me and asked me if I was a slave. I told him that I
was. He asked, "Are ye a slave for life?" I told him that I was. The
good Irishman seemed to be deeply affected by the statement. He
said to the other that it was a pity so fine a little fellow as myself
should be a slave for life. He said it was a shame to hold me. They
both advised me to run away to the North; that I should find
friends there, and that I should be free. I pretended not to be
interested in what they said, and treated them as if I did not
understand them; for I feared they might be treacherous. White
men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to
get the reward, catch them and return them to their masters. I was
afraid that these seemingly good men might use me so; but I
nevertheless remembered their advice, and from that time I
resolved to run away. I looked forward to a time at which it would
be safe for me to escape. I was too young to think of doing so
immediately; besides, I wished to learn how to write, as I might
have occasion to write my own pass. I consoled myself with the
hope that I should one day find a good chance. Meanwhile I would
learn to write.

The idea as to how I might learn to write was suggested to me by
being in Durgin and Bailey's ship-yard, and frequently seeing the
ship-carpenters, after hewing and getting a piece of timber ready
for use, write on the timber the name of that part of the ship for
which it was intended. When a piece of timber was intended for
the larboard-side it would be marked thus--"L." When a piece for
the starboard-side it would be marked thus--"S." A piece for the
larboard-side forward would be marked thus--"L. F." When a piece
was for starboard-side forward it would be marked thus--"S. F."
For larboard-aft it would be marked thus--"L. A." For starboard-aft
it would be marked thus--"S. A." I soon learned the names of these
letters, and for what they were intended when placed upon a piece
of timber in the ship-yard. I immediately commenced copying
them, and in a short time was able to make the four letters named.
After that,  when I met with any boy who I knew could write, I
would tell him I could write as well as he. The next word would
be, "I don't believe you. Let me see you try it." I would then make
the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to
beat that. In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it
was quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way.
During this time my copy-book was the board fence, brick wall,
and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump of chalk. With this I
learned mainly how to write. I then commenced and continued
copying the Italics in Webster's Spelling-Book, until I could make
them all without looking on the book. By this time my little master
Thomas had gone to school and learned how to write, and had
written over a number of copy-books. These had been brought
home, and shown to some of our neighbours, and then laid aside.
My mistress used to go to class-meeting at the Wilk-street
meeting-house every Monday afternoon, and leave me to take care
of the house. When left thus I used to spend the time in writing in
the spaces left in Master Thomas's copying-book, copying what he
had written. I continued to do this until I could write a hand very
similar to that of Master Thomas. Thus, after a long, tedious effort
for years, I finally succeeded in learning how to write.

These few quoted incidents will show that the case of George
Harris is by no means so uncommon as might be supposed.

Let the reader peruse the account which George Harris gives of the
sale of his mother and her children, and then read the following
account given by the venerable Josiah Henson, now pastor of the
missionary settlement at Dawn, in Canada.

After the death of his master, he says, the slaves of the plantation
were all put up at auction, and sold to the highest bidder.

My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one, while my mother,
holding my hand, looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of
which I but ill understood at first, but which dawned on my mind
with dreadful clearness as the sale proceeded. My mother was then
separated from me and put up in her turn. She was bought by a
man named Isaac R., residing in Montgomery County [Maryland],
and then I was offered to the assembled purchasers. My mother,
half distracted with the parting for ever from all her children,
pushed through the crowd, while the bidding for me was going on,
to the spot where R. was standing. She fell at his feet, and clung to
his knees, entreating him, in tones that a mother only could
command, to buy her baby as well as herself, and spare to her one
of her little ones at least. Will it, can it be believed, that this man,
thus appealed to, was capable, not merely of turning a deaf ear to
her supplication, but of disengaging himself from her with such
violent blows and kicks as to reduce her to the necessity of
creeping out of his reach, and mingling the groan of bodily
suffering with the sob of a breaking heart?

Now all these incidents that have been given are real incidents of
slavery, related by those who know slavery by the best of all
tests--experience; and they are given by men who have earned a
good character in freedom, which makes their word as good as the
word of any man living.

The case of Lewis Clark might be called a harder one than
common. The case of Douglass is probably a very fair average
specimen.

The writer had conversed, in her time, with a very considerable
number of liberated slaves, many of whom stated that their own
individual lot had been comparatively a mild one; but she never
talked with one who did not let fall, first or last, some incident
which he had observed, some scene which he had witnessed,
which went to show some most horrible abuse of the system; and
what was most affecting about it, the narrator often evidently
considered it so much a matter of course as to mention it
incidentally, without any particular emotion.

It is supposed by many that the great outcry among those who are
opposed to slavery comes from a morbid reading of
unauthenticated accounts got up in abolition papers, &c;. This idea
is a very mistaken one. The accounts which tell against the
slave-system are derived from the continual living testimony of the
poor slave himself; often from that of the fugitives from slavery
who are continually passing through our Northern cities.

As a specimen of some of the incidents, thus developed, is given
the following fact of recent occurrence, related to the author by a
lady in Boston. This lady, who was much in the habit of visiting
the poor, was sent for, a month or two since, to see a mulatto
woman, who had just arrived at a coloured boarding-house near
by, and who appeared to be in much dejection of mind. A little
conversation showed her to be a fugitive. Her history was as
follows: She, with her brother, were, as is often the case, both the
children and slaves of their master. At his death, they were left to
his legitimate daughter as her servants, and treated with as much
consideration as very common kind of people might be expected to
show those who were entirely and in every respect at their
disposal.

The wife of her brother ran away to Canada; and as there was
some talk of selling her and her child, in consequence of some
embarrassment in the family affairs, her brother, a fine-spirited
young man, determined to effect her escape, also, to a land of
liberty. He concealed her for some time in the back part of an
obscure dwelling in the city, till he could find an opportunity to
send her off. While she was in this retreat, he was indefatigable in
his attentions to her, frequently bringing her fruit and flowers, and
doing everything he could to beguile the weariness of her
imprisonment.

At length, the steward of a vessel, whom he had obliged, offered to
conceal him on board the ship, and give him a chance to escape.
The noble-hearted fellow, though tempted by an offer which would
enable him immediately to join his wife, to whom he was tenderly
attached, preferred to give this offer to his sister, and during the
absence of the captain of the vessel she and her child were brought
on board and secreted.

The captain, when he returned and discovered what had been done,
was very angry, as the thing, if detected, would have involved him
in very serious difficulties. He declared at first, that he would send
the woman up into town to jail; but, by her entreaties and those of
the steward, was induced to wait till evening, and send word to her
brother to come and take her back. After dark the brother came on
board, and, instead of taking his sister away, began to appeal to the
humanity of the captain in the most moving terms. He told his
sister's history and his own, and pleaded eloquently his desire for
her liberty. The captain had determined to be obdurate, but, alas!
he was only a man. Perhaps he had himself a wife and
child--perhaps he felt that, were he in the young man's case, he
would do just so for his sister. Be it as it may, he was at last
overcome. He said to the young man, "I must send you away from
my ship; I'll put off a boat and see you get into it, and you must
row off, and never let me see your faces again; and if, after all, you
should come back and get on board, it will be your fault and not
mine."

So, in the rain and darkness, the young man and his sister and child
were lowered over the side of the vessel, and rowed away. After a
while the ship weighed anchor, but before she reached Boston it
was discovered that the woman and child were on board.

The lady to whom this story was related, was requested to write a
letter, in certain terms, to a person in the city whence the fugitive
had come, to let the brother know of her safe arrival.

The fugitive was furnished with work, by which she could support
herself and child, and the lady carefully attended to her wants for a
few weeks.

One morning she came in, with a good deal of agitation,
exclaiming, "O ma'am, he's come! George is come!" And in a few
minutes the young man was introduced.

The lady who gave this relation belongs to the first circles of
Boston society; she says that she never was more impressed by the
personal manners of any gentleman than by those of this fugitive
brother. So much did he have the air of a perfect, finished
gentleman, that she felt she could not question him with regard to
his escape with the familiarity with which persons of his condition
are commonly approached; and it was not till he requested her to
write a letter for him, because he could not write himself, that she
could realize that this fine specimen of manhood had been all his
life a slave.

The remainder of the history is no less romantic. The lady had a
friend in Montreal, whither George's wife had gone; and, after
furnishing money to pay their expenses, she presented them with a
letter to this gentleman, requesting the latter to assist the young
man in finding his wife. When they landed at Montreal, George
stepped on shore and presented this letter to the first man he met,
asking him if he knew to whom it was directed. The gentleman
proved to be the very person to whom the letter was addressed. He
knew George's wife, brought him to her without delay, so that, by
return mail, the lady had the satisfaction of learning the happy
termination of the adventure.

This is but a specimen of histories which are continually
transpiring; so that those who speak of slavery can say, "We speak
that which we do know, and testify that we have seen."

But we shall be told the slaves are all a lying race, and that these
are lies which they tell us. There are some things, however, about
these slaves, which cannot lie. Those deep lines of patient sorrow
upon the face; that attitude of crouching and humble subjection;
that sad, habitual expression of hope deferred in the eye, would tell
their story if the slave never spoke.

It is not long since the writer has seen faces such as might haunt
one's dreams for weeks.

Suppose a poor, worn-out mother, sickly, feeble, and old-- her
hands worn to the bone with hard, unpaid toil, whose nine children
have been sold to the slave trader, and whose tenth soon is to be
sold, unless by her labour as a washerwoman she can raise nine
hundred dollars! Such are the kind of cases constantly coming to
one's knowledge, such are the witnesses which will not let us
sleep.

Doubt has been expressed whether such a thing as an
advertisement for a man "dead or alive," like the advertisement for
George Harris, was ever published in the Southern States. The
scene of the story in which that occurs is supposed to be laid a few
years back, at the time when the black laws of Ohio were passed.
That at this time such advertisements were common in the
newspapers, there is abundant evidence. That they are less
common now, is a matter of hope and gratulation.

In the year 1839, Mr. Theodore D. Weld made a systematic
attempt to collect and arrange the statistics of slavery. A mass of
facts and statistics was gathered, which was authenticated with the
most unquestionable accuracy. Some of the "one thousand"
witnesses, whom he brings upon the stand, were ministers,
lawyers, merchants, and men of various other callings, who were
either natives of the slave States, or had been residents there for
many years of their life. Many of these were slaveholders. Others
of the witnesses were, or had been, slave-drivers, or officers of
coasting-vessels engaged in the slave-trade.

Another part of his evidence was gathered from public speeches in
Congress, in the State legislatures, and elsewhere. But the majority
of it was taken from recent newspapers.

The papers from which these facts were copied were preserved and
put on file in a public place, where they remained for some years
for the information of the curious. After Mr. Weld's book was
completed, a copy of it was sent, through the mail, to every editor
from whose paper such advertisements had been taken, and to
every individual of whom any facts had been narrated, with the
passage concerning them marked.

It is quite possible that this may have had some influence in
rendering such advertisements less common. Men of sense often
go on doing a thing which is very absurd, or even inhuman, simply
because it has always been done before them, and they follow
general custom, without much reflection. When their attention,
however, is called to it by a stranger who sees the thing from
another point of view, they become immediately sensible of the
impropriety of the practice, and discontinue it. The reader will,
however, be pained to notice, when he comes to the legal part of
the book, that, even in some of the largest cities of our slave
States, this barbarity had not been entirely discontinued in the year
1850.

The list of advertisements in Mr. Weld's book is here inserted, not
to weary the reader with its painful details, but that, by running his
eye over the dates of the papers quoted, and the places of their
publication, he may form a fair estimate of the extent to which this
atrocity was publicly practised.

The Wilmington (North Carolina) Advertiser, of July 13, 1838,
contains the following advertisement:

"100 dollars will be paid to any person who may apprehend, and
safely confine in any jail in this State, a certain negro man, named
ALFRED. And the same reward will be paid if satisfactory
evidence is given of his having been KILLED. He has one or more
scars on one of his hands, caused by his having been shot.

"THE CITIZENS OF ONSLOW.

"Richlands, Onslow Co. May 16, 1838."

In the same column with the above, and directly under it, is the
following.

"RAN AWAY, my negro man RICHARD. A reward of 25 dollars
will be paid for his apprehension, DEAD or ALIVE. Satisfactory
proof will only be required of his being KILLED. He has with him,
in all probability, his wife ELIZA, who ran away from Col.
Thompson, now a resident of Alabama, about the time he
commenced his journey to that State.

"DURANT H. RHODES."

In the Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, May 28, is the following.

"About the first of March last the negro man RANSON left me
without the least provocation whatever; I will give a reward of
twenty dollars for said negro if taken, DEAD OR ALIVE; and if
killed in any attempt, an advance of five dollars will be paid.

"BRYANT JOHNSON.

"Crawford Co., Georgia."

See the Newbern (North Carolina) Spectator, Jan. 5, 1838, for the
following.

"RAN AWAY from the subscriber, a negro man, named
SAMPSON. Fifty dollars reward will be given for the delivery of
him to me, or his confinement in any jail, so that I get him; and
should he resist in being taken, so that violence is necessary to
arrest him, I will not hold any person liable to damages should the
slave be killed.

"ENOCH FOY,

"Jones Co., N. C."

From the Charleston (South Carolina) Courier, Feb. 20, 1836.

"300 DOLLARS REWARD. Ran away from the subscriber, in
November last, his two negro men, named BILLY and POMPEY.

"Billy is 25 years old, and is known as the patroon of my boat for
many years. In all probability he may resist; in that event, 50
dollars will be paid for his HEAD."

CHAPTER V. ELIZA.

THE writer stated in her book that Eliza was a portrait drawn from
life. The incident which brought the original to her notice may be
simply narrated.

While the writer was travelling in Kentucky, many years ago, she
attended church in a small country town. While there, her attention
was called to a beautiful quadroon girl, who sat in one of the slips
of the church, and appeared to have charge of some young
children. The description of Eliza may suffice for a description of
her. When the author returned from the church, she inquired about
the girl, and was told that she was as good and amiable as she was
beautiful; that she was a pious girl, and a member of the Church;
and, finally, that she was owned by Mr. So-and-so. The idea that
this girl was a slave struck a chill to her heart, and she said
earnestly, "Oh, I hope they treat her kindly."

"Oh, certainly," was the reply; "they think as much of her as of
their own children."

"I hope they will never sell her," said a person in the company.

"Certainly they will not; a Southern gentleman, not long ago,
offered her master a thousand dollars for her; but he told him that
she was too good to be his wife, and he certainly should not have
her for a mistress."

That is all the writer knows of that girl.

With regard to the incident of Eliza's crossing the river on the
ice--as the possibility of the thing has been disputed--the writer
gives the following circumstance in confirmation.

Last spring, while the author was in New York, a Presbyterian
clergyman of Ohio came to her, and said, "I understand they
dispute that fact about the woman's crossing the river. Now, I
know all about that, for I got the story from the very man that
helped her up the bank. I know it is true, for she is now living in
Canada."

It has been objected that the representation of the scene in which
the plan for kidnapping Eliza is concocted by Haley, Marks, and
Loker, at the tavern, is a gross caricature on the state of things in
Ohio.

What knowledge the author has had of the facilities which some
justices of the peace, under the old fugitive law of Ohio, were in
the habit of giving to kidnapping, may be inferred by comparing
the statement in her book with some in her personal knowledge.

"Ye see," said Marks to Haley, stirring his punch as he did so, "ye
see, we has justices convenient at all p'ints along shore, that does
up any little jobs in our line quite reasonable. Tom, he does the
knockin' down, and that ar; and I come in all dressed up--shining
boots--everything first chop--when the swearin's to be done. You
oughter see me, now!" said Marks, in a glow of professional pride,
"how I can tone it off. One day I'm Mr. Twickem, from New
Orleans; 'nother day, I'm just come from my plantation on Pearl
river, where I works seven hundred niggers; then, again, I come
out a distant relation to Henry Clay, or some old cock in Kentuck.
Talents is different, you know. Now, Tom's a roarer when there's
any thumping or fighting to be done; but at lying he an't good, Tom
an't; ye see it don't come natural to him; but, Lord! if thar's a feller
in the country that can swear to anything and everything, and put
in all the circumstances and flourishes with a longer face, and
carry't through better'n I can, why, I'd like to see him, that's all! I
b'lieve, my heart, I could get along, and snake through, even if
justices were more particular than they is. Sometimes I rather wish
they was more particular; 'twould be a heap more relishin' if they
was--more fun, yer know."

In the year 1839, the writer received into her family, as a servant, a
girl from Kentucky. She had been the slave of one of the lowest
and most brutal families, with whom she had been brought up, in a
log-cabin, in a state of half-barbarism. In proceeding to give her
religious instruction, the author heard, for the first time in her life,
an inquiry which she had not supposed possible to be made in
America--"Who is Jesus Christ, now, anyhow?"

When the author told her the history of the love and life and death
of Christ, the girl seemed wholly overcome; tears streamed down
her cheeks, and she exclaimed piteously, "Why didn't nobody
never tell me this before?"

"But," said the writer to her, "haven't you ever seen the Bible?"

"Yes, I have seen Missus a-readin' on't sometimes; but, law sakes!
she's just a readin' on't 'cause she could; don't s'pose it did her no
good, no way."

She said she had been to one or two camp-meetings in her life, but
"didn't notice very particular."

At all events, the story certainly made great impression on her, and
had such an effect in improving her conduct, that the writer had
great hopes of her.

On inquiring into her history, it was discovered that, by the laws of
Ohio, she was legally entitled to her freedom, from the fact of her
having been brought into the State, and left there, temporarily, by
the consent of her mistress. These facts being properly
authenticated before the proper authorities, papers attesting her
freedom were drawn up, and it was now supposed that all danger
of pursuit was over. After she had remained in the family for some
months, word was sent, from various sources, to Professor Stowe,
that the girl's young master was over, looking for her, and that, if
care were not taken, she would be conveyed back into slavery.

Professor Stowe called on the magistrate who had authenticated
her papers, and inquired whether they were not sufficient to
protect her. The reply was, Certainly they are, in law, if she could
have a fair hearing; but they will come to your house in the night,
with an officer and a warrant; they will take her before Justice D--,
and swear to her. He's the man that does all this kind of business,
and he'll deliver her up, and there'll be an end of it.

Mr. Stowe then inquired what could be done; and was
recommended to carry her to some place of security till the inquiry
for her was over. Accordingly, that night, a brother of the author,
with Professor Stowe, performed for the fugitive that office which
the senator is represented as performing for Eliza. They drove
about ten miles on a solitary road, crossed the creek at a very
dangerous fording, and presented themselves, at mid-night, at the
house of John Van Zandt, a noble-minded Kentuckian, who had
performed the good deed which the author, in her story, ascribes to
Van Tromp.

After some rapping at the door, the worthy owner of the mansion
appeared, candle in hand, as has been narrated.

"Are you the man that would save a poor coloured girl from
kidnappers?" was the first question.

"Guess I am," was the prompt response; "where is she?"

"Why, she's here."

"But how did you come?"

"I crossed the creek."

"Why, the Lord helped you!" said he; "I shouldn't dare cross it
myself in the night. A man and his wife, and five children were
drowned there, a little while ago."

The reader may be interested to know that the poor girl was never
re-taken: that she married well in Cincinnati, is a very respectable
woman, and the mother of a large family of children.

CHAPTER VI. UNCLE TOM.

THE character of Uncle Tom has been objected to as improbable;
and yet the writer has received more confirmations of that
character, and from a great variety of sources, than of any other in
the book.

Many people have said to her, "I knew an Uncle Tom in
such-and-such a Southern State." All the histories of this kind
which have thus been related to her would of themselves, if
collected, make a small volume. The author will relate a few of
them.

While visiting in an obscure town in Maine, in the family of a
friend, the conversation happened to turn upon this subject, and
the gentleman with whose family she was staying related the
following. He said, that when on a visit to his brother in New
Orleans, some years before, he found in his possession a most
valuable negro man, of such remarkable probity and honesty that
his brother literally trusted him with all he had. He had frequently
seen him take out a handful of bills, without looking at them, and
hand them to this servant, bidding him go and provide what was
necessary for the family, and bring him the change. He
remonstrated with his brother on this imprudence; but the latter
replied that he had had such proofs of this servant's impregnable
conscientiousness that he felt it safe to trust him to any extent.

The history of the servant was this. He had belonged to a man in
Baltimore, who, having a general prejudice against all the religious
exercises of slaves, did all that he could to prevent his having any
time for devotional duties, and strictly forbade him to read the
Bible and pray, either by himself or with the other servants; and
because, like a certain man of old, named Daniel, he constantly
disobeyed this unchristian edict, his master inflicted upon him that
punishment which a master always has in his power to inflict--he
sold him into perpetual exile from his wife and children, down to
New Orleans.

The gentleman who gave the writer this information says that,
although not a religious man at the time, he was so struck with the
man's piety, that he said to his brother, "I hope you will never do
anything to deprive this man of his religious privileges, for I think
a judgment will come upon you if you do." To this his brother
replied that he should be very foolish to do it, since he had made
up his mind that the man's religion was the root of his
extraordinary excellences.

Some time since there was sent to the writer from the South,
through the mail, a little book, entitled "Sketches of Old Virginia
Family Servants," with a preface by Bishop Meade. The book
contains an account of the following servants: African Bella, Old
Milly, Blind Lucy, Aunt Betty, Springsfield Bob, Mammy Chris,
Diana Washington, Aunt Margaret, Rachel Parker, Nelly Jackson,
My Own Mammy, Aunt Beck.

The following extract from Bishop Meade's preface may not be
uninteresting:--

The following sketches were placed in my hands with a request
that I would examine them with a view to publication.

After reading them, I could not but think that they would be both
pleasing and edifying.

Very many such examples of fidelity and piety might be added
from the old Virginia families. These will suffice as specimens,
and will serve to show how interesting the relation between master
and servant often is.

Many will doubtless be surprised to find that there was so much
intelligence as well as piety in some of the old servants of
Virginia, and that they had learned to read the Sacred Scriptures,
so as to be useful in this way among their fellow-servants. It is, and
always has been true, in regard to the servants of the Southern
States, that although public schools may have been prohibited, yet
no interference has been attempted, where the owners have chosen
to teach their servants, or permit them to learn in a private way
how to read God's word. Accordingly, there always have been
some who were thus taught. In the more Southern States the
number of these has most abounded. Of this fact I became well
assured about thirty years since, when visiting the Atlantic States,
with a view to the formation of auxiliary colonization societies,
and the selection of the first colonists for Africa. In the city of
Charleston, South Carolina, I found more intelligence and
character among the free coloured population than anywhere else.
The same was true of some of those in bondage. A respectable
number might be seen in certain parts of the Episcopal churches
which I attended, using their prayer-books, and joining in the
responses of the church.

Many purposes of convenience and hospitality were subserved by
this encouragement of cultivation in some of the servants, on the
part of the owners.

When travelling many years since with a sick wife, and two female
relatives, from Charleston to Virginia, at a period of the year when
many of the families from the country resort to the town for health,
we were kindly urged to call at the seat of one of the first families
in South Carolina; and a letter from the mistress, then in the city,
was given us, to her servant, who had charge of the house in the
absence of the family. On reaching there, and delivering the letter
to a most respectable-looking female servant, who immediately
read it, we were kindly welcomed and entertained, during a part of
two days, as sumptuously as though the owner had been present.
We understood that it was no uncommon thing in South Carolina
for travellers to be thus entertained by the servants in the absence
of the owners, on receiving letters from the same.

Instances of confidential and affectionate relationship between
servants and their masters and mistresses, such as are set forth in
the following sketches, are still to be found in all the slave-holding
States. I mention one, which has come under my own observation.
The late Judge Upshur, of Virginia, had a faithful house-servant
(by his will now set free), with whom he used to correspond on
matters of business when he was absent on his circuit. I was dining
at his house, some years since, with a number of persons, himself
being absent, when the conversation turned on the subject of the
presidential election, then going on through the United States, and
about which there was an intense interest; when his servant
informed us that he had that day received a letter from his master,
then on the western shore, in which he stated that the friends of
General Harrison might be relieved from all uneasiness, as the
returns already received made his election quite certain.

Of course it is not to be supposed that we design to convey the
impression that such instances are numerous, the nature of the
relationship forbidding it; but we do mean emphatically to affirm
that there is far more of kindly and Christian intercourse than
many at a distance are apt to believe. That there is a great and sad
want of Christian instruction, notwithstanding the more recent
efforts put forth to impart it, we most sorrowfully acknowledge.

Bishop Meade adds that these sketches are published with the hope
that they might have the effect of turning the attention of ministers
and heads of families more seriously to the duty of caring for the
souls of their servants.

With regard to the servant of Judge Upshur, spoken of in this
communication of Bishop Meade, his master has left, in his last
will, the following remarkable tribute to his worth and excellence
of character:--

I emancipate and set free my servant, David Rice, and direct my
executors to give him one hundred dollars. I recommend him in
the strongest manner to the respect, esteem, and confidence of any
community in which he may happen to live. He has been my slave
for twenty-four years, during all which time he has been trusted to
every extent, and in every respect; my confidence in him has been
unbounded; his relation to myself and family has always been such
as to afford him daily opportunities to deceive and injure us; yet he
has never been detected in any serious fault, nor even in an
unintentional breach of decorum of his station. His intelligence is
of a high order, his integrity above all suspicion, and his sense of
right and propriety correct, and even refined. I feel that he is justly
entitled to carry this certificate from me in the new relations which
he must now form; it is due to his long and most faithful services,
and to the sincere and steady friendship which I bear to him. In the
uninterrupted confidential intercourse of twenty-four years, I have
never given him, nor had occasion to give him, one unpleasant
word. I know no man who has fewer faults or more excellences
than he.

In the free States there have been a few instances of such
extraordinary piety among negroes, that their biography and
sayings have been collected in religious tracts, and published for
the instruction of the community.

One of these was, before his conversion, a convict in a State-prison
in New York, and there received what was, perhaps, the first
religious instruction that had ever been imparted to him. He
became so eminent an example of humility, faith, and, above all,
fervent love, that his presence in the neighbourhood was esteemed
a blessing to the church. A lady has described to the writer the
manner in which he would stand up and exhort in the
church-meetings for prayer, when, with streaming eyes and the
deepest abasement, humbly addressing them as his masters and
misses, he would nevertheless pour forth religious exhortations
which were edifying to the most cultivated and refined.

In the town of Brunswick, Maine, where the writer lived when
writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," may now be seen the grave of an
aged coloured woman, named Phebe, who was so eminent for her
piety and loveliness of character, that the writer has never heard
her name mentioned except with that degree of awe and respect
which one would imagine due to a saint. The small cottage where
she resided is still visited and looked upon as a sort of shrine, as
the spot where old Phebe lived and prayed. Her prayers and pious
exhortations were supposed to have been the cause of the
conversion of many young people in the place. Notwithstanding
that the unchristian feeling of caste prevails as strongly in Maine
as anywhere else in New England, and the negro, commonly
speaking, is an object of aversion and contempt, yet, so great was
the influence of her piety and loveliness of character, that she was
uniformly treated with the utmost respect and attention by all
classes of people. The most cultivated and intelligent ladies of the
place esteemed it a privilege to visit her cottage; and when she was
old and helpless, her wants were most tenderly provided for. When
the news of her death was spread abroad in the place, it excited a
general and very tender sensation of regret. "We have lost Phebe's
prayers," was the remark frequently made afterwards by members
of the church, as they met one another. At her funeral, the
ex-governor of the State and the professors of the college
officiated as pall-bearers, and a sermon was preached, in which the
many excellences of her Christian character were held up as an
example to the community. A small religious tract, containing an
account of her life, was published by the American Tract Society,
prepared by a lady of Brunswick. The writer recollects that on
reading the tract, when she first went to Brunswick, a doubt arose
in her mind whether it was not somewhat exaggerated. Some time
afterwards she overheard some young persons conversing together
about the tract, and saying that they did not think it gave exactly
the right idea of Phebe. "Why, is it too highly coloured?" was the
inquiry of the author. "Oh, no, no, indeed!" was the earnest
response; "it doesn't begin to give an idea of how good she was."

Such instances as these serve to illustrate the words of the Apostle,
"God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty."

John Bunyan says, that although the valley of humiliation be
unattractive in the eyes of the men of this world, yet the very
sweetest flowers grow there. So it is with the condition of the
lowly and poor in this world. God has often, indeed always, shown
a particular regard for it, in selecting from that class the recipients
of his grace. It is to be remembered that Jesus Christ, when he
came to found the Christian dispensation, did not choose his
apostles from the chief priests and the scribes, learned in the law
and high in the church; nor did he choose them from philosophers
and poets, whose educated and comprehensive minds might be
supposed best able to appreciate his great designs; but he chose
twelve plain, poor fishermen, who were ignorant, and felt that they
were ignorant, and who, therefore, were willing to give themselves
up with all simplicity to his guidance. What God asks of the soul
more than anything else is faith and simplicity, the affection and
reliance of the little child. Even these twelve fancied too much that
they were wise, and Jesus was obliged to set a little child in the
midst of them, as a more perfect teacher.

The negro race is confessedly more simple, docile, childlike, and
affectionate, than other races; and hence the divine graces of love
and faith, when in-breathed by the Holy Spirit, find in their natural
temperament a more congenial atmosphere.

A last instance parallel with that of Uncle Tom is to be found in
the published memoirs of the venerable Josiah Henson, now, as we
have said, a clergyman in Canada. He was "raised" in the State of
Maryland. His first recollections were of seeing his father
mutilated and covered with blood, suffering the penalty of the law
for the crime of raising his hand against a white man --that white
man being the overseer, who had attempted a brutal assault upon
his mother. This punishment made his father surly and dangerous,
and he was subsequently sold South, and thus parted for ever from
his wife and children. Henson grew up in a state of heathenism,
without any religious instruction, till, in a camp-meeting, he first
heard of Jesus Christ, and was electrified by the great and thrilling
news that He had tasted death for every man, the bond as well as
the free. This story produced an immediate conversion, such as we
read of in the Acts of the Apostles, where the Ethiopian eunuch,
from one interview, hearing the story of the cross, at once believes
and is baptized. Henson forthwith not only became a Christian, but
began to declare the news to those about him; and, being a man of
great natural force of mind and strength of character, his earnest
endeavours to enlighten his fellow-heathen were so successful, that
he was gradually led to assume the station of a negro preacher; and
though he could not read a word of the Bible or hymn-book, his
labours in this line were much prospered. He became immediately
a very valuable slave to his master, and was intrusted by the latter
with the oversight of his whole estate, which he managed with
great judgment and prudence. His master appears to have been a
very ordinary man in every respect,--to have been entirely
incapable of estimating him in any other light than as exceedingly
valuable property, and to have had no other feeling excited by his
extraordinary faithfulness than the desire to make the most of him.
When his affairs became embarrassed, he formed the design of
removing all his negroes into Kentucky, and intrusted the
operation entirely to his overseer. Henson was to take them alone,
without any other attendant, from Maryland to Kentucky, a
distance of some thousands of miles, giving only his promise as a
Christian that he would faithfully perform this undertaking. On the
way thither they passed through a portion of Ohio, and there
Henson was informed that he could now secure his own freedom
and that of all his fellows, and he was strongly urged to do it. He
was exceedingly tempted and tried, but his Christian principle was
invulnerable. No inducements could lead him to feel that it was
right for a Christian to violate a pledge solemnly given, and his
influence over the whole band was so great that he took them all
with him into Kentucky. Those causists among us who lately seem
to think and teach that it is right for us to violate the plain
commands of God, whenever some great national good can be
secured by it, would do well to contemplate the inflexible
principle of this poor slave, who, without being able to read a
letter of the Bible, was yet enabled to perform this most sublime
act of self-renunciation in obedience to its commands.
Subsequently to this, his master, in a relenting moment, was
induced by a friend to sell him his freedom for four hundred
dollars; but, when the excitement of the importunity had passed
off, he regretted that he had suffered so valuable a piece of
property to leave his hands for so slight a remuneration. By an
unworthy artifice, therefore, he got possession of his servant's free
papers, and condemned him still to hopeless slavery.
Subsequently, his affairs becoming still more involved, he sent his
son down the river with a flat boat loaded with cattle and produce
for the New Orleans market, directing him to take Henson along,
and sell him after they had sold the cattle and the boat. All the
depths of the negro's soul were torn up and thrown into convulsion
by this horrible piece of ingratitude, cruelty and injustice; and,
while outwardly calm, he was struggling with most bitter
temptations from within, which, as he could not read the Bible, he
could repel only by a recollection of its sacred truths, and by
earnest prayer. As he neared the New Orleans market, he says that
these convulsions of soul increased, especially when he met some
of his old companions from Kentucky, whose despairing
countenances and emaciated forms told of hard work and
insufficient food, and confirmed all his worst fears of the lower
country. In the transports of his despair, the temptation was more
urgently presented to him to murder his young master and the
other hand on the flat boat in their sleep, to seize upon the boat,
and make his escape. He thus relates the scene where he was
almost brought to the perpetration of this deed:--

One dark, rainy night, within a few days of New Orleans, my hour
seemed to have come. I was alone on the deck; Mr. Amos and the
hands were all asleep below, and I crept down noiselessly, got hold
of an axe, entered the cabin, and looking by the aid of the dim light
there for my victims, my eye fell upon Master Amos, who was
nearest to me; my hand slid along the axe-handle, I raised it to
strike the fatal blow, when suddenly the thought came to me,
"What! commit murder! and you a Christian?" I had not called it
murder before. It was self-defence--it was preventing others from
murdering me--it was justifiable, it was even praiseworthy. But
now, all at once, the truth burst upon me that it was a crime. I was
going to kill a young man, who had done nothing to injure me, but
obey commands which he could not resist; I was about to lose the
fruit of all my efforts at self-improvement, the character I had
acquired, and the peace of mind which had never deserted me. All
this came upon me instantly, and with a distinctness which made
me almost think I heard it whispered in my ear; and I believe I
even turned my head to listen. I shrunk back, laid down the axe,
crept up on deck again, and thanked God, as I have done every day
since, that I had not committed murder.

My feelings were still agitated, but they were changed. I was filled
with shame and remorse for the design I had entertained, and with
the fear that my companions would detect it in my face, or that a
careless word would betray my guilty thoughts. I remained on deck
all night, instead of rousing one of the men to relieve me; and
nothing brought composure to my mind, but the solemn resolution
I then made to resign myself to the will of God, and take with
thankfulness, if I could, but with submission, at all events,
whatever he might decide should be my lot. I reflected that if my
life were reduced to a brief term, I should have less to suffer, and
that it was better to die with a Christian's hope, and a quiet
conscience, than to live with the incessant recollection of a crime
that would destroy the value of life, and under the weight of a
secret that would crush out the satisfaction that might be expected
from freedom, and every other blessing.

Subsequently to this, his young master was taken violently down
with the river fever, and became as helpless as a child. He
passionately entreated Henson not to desert him, but to attend to
the selling of the boat and produce, and put him on board the
steamboat, and not to leave him, dead or alive, till he had carried
him back to his father.

The young master was borne in the arms of his faithful servant to
the steamboat, and there nursed by him with unremitting attention
during the journey up the river; nor did he leave him till he had
placed him in his father's arms.

Our love for human nature would lead us to add, with sorrow, that
all this disinterestedness and kindness was rewarded only by empty
praises, such as would be bestowed upon a very fine dog; and
Henson indignantly resolved no longer to submit to the injustice.
With a degree of prudence, courage, and address, which can
scarcely find a parallel in any history, he managed, with his wife
and two children, to escape into Canada. Here he learned to read,
and by his superior talent and capacity for management, laid the
foundation of the fugitive settlement of Dawn, which is understood
to be one of the most flourishing in Canada.

It would be well for the most cultivated of us to ask, whether our
ten talents in the way of religious knowledge have enabled us to
bring forth as much fruit to the glory of God, to withstand
temptation as patiently, to return good for evil as disinterestedly,
as this poor ignorant slave. A writer in England has sneeringly
remarked that such a man as Uncle Tom might be imported as a
missionary to teach the most cultivated in England or America the
true nature of religion. These instances show that what has been
said with a sneer is in truth a sober verity; and it should never be
forgotten that out of this race whom man despiseth have often
been chosen of God true messengers of his grace, and temples for
the indwelling of his Spirit.

"For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,
whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of
the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

The vision attributed to Uncle Tom introduces quite a curious
chapter of psychology with regard to the negro race, and
indicates> a peculiarity which goes far to show how very different
they are from the white race. They are possessed of a nervous
organisation peculiarly susceptible and impressible. Their
sensations and impressions are very vivid, and their fancy and
imagination lively. In this respect the race has an Oriental
character, and betrays its tropical origin. Like the Hebrews of old
and the Oriental nations of the present, they give vent to their
emotions with the utmost vivacity of expression, and their whole
bodily system sympathises with the movements of their minds.
When in distress, they actually lift up their voices to weep, and
"cry with an exceeding bitter cry." When alarmed, they are often
paralysed, and rendered entirely helpless. Their religious exercises
are all coloured by this sensitive and exceedingly vivacious
temperament. Like Oriental nations, they incline much to outward
expressions, violent gesticulations, and agitating movements of the
body. Sometimes in their religious meetings they will spring from
the floor many times in succession, with a violence and rapidity
which is perfectly astonishing. They will laugh, weep, and
embrace each other convulsively, and sometimes become entirely
paralysed and cataleptic. A clergyman from the North once
remonstrated with a Southern clergyman for permitting such
extravagances among his flock. The reply of the Southern minister
was, in effect, this: "Sir, I am satisfied that the races are so
essentially different that they cannot be regulated by the same
rules. I at first felt as you do; and though I saw that genuine
conversions did take place, with all this outward manifestation, I
was still so much annoyed by it as to forbid it among my negroes,
till I was satisfied that the repression of it was a serious hindrance
to real religious feeling; and then I became certain that all men
cannot be regulated in their religious exercises by one model. I am
assured that conversions produced with these accessories are quite
as apt to be genuine, and to be as influential over the heart and life,
as those produced in any other way." The fact is, that the
Anglo-Saxon race--cool, logical, and practical--have yet to learn
the doctrine of toleration for the peculiarities of other races; and
perhaps it was with a foresight of their peculiar character and
dominant position in the earth, that God gave the Bible to them in
the fervent language and with the glowing imagery of the more
susceptible and passionate Oriental races.

Mesmerists have found that the negroes are singularly susceptible
to all that class of influences which produce catalepsy, mesmeric
sleep, and partial clairvoyant phenomena.

The African race, in their own climate, are believers in spells, in
"fetish and obi," in "the evil eye," and other singular influences, for
which probably there is an origin in this peculiarity of constitution.
The magicians in scriptural history were Africans; and the
so-called magical arts are still practised in Egypt, and other parts
of Africa, with a degree of skill and success which can only be
accounted for by supposing peculiarities of nervous constitution
quite different from those of the whites. Considering those
distinctive traits of the race, it is no matter of surprise to find in
their religious histories, when acted upon by the powerful
stimulant of the Christian religion, very peculiar features. We are
not surprised to find almost constantly, in the narrations of their
religious histories, accounts of visions, of heavenly voices, of
mysterious sympathies and transmissions of knowledge from heart
to heart without the intervention of the senses, or what the Quakers
call being "baptized into the spirit" of those who are distant.

Cases of this kind are constantly recurring in their histories. The
young man whose story was related to the Boston lady, and
introduced above in the chapter on George Harris, stated this
incident concerning the recovery of his liberty: That after the
departure of his wife and sister, he for a long time, and very
earnestly, sought some opportunity of escape, but that every
avenue appeared to be closed to him. At length, in despair, he
retreated to his room, and threw himself upon his bed, resolving to
give up the undertaking, when just as he was sinking to sleep, he
was roused by a voice saying in his ear, "Why do you sleep now?
Rise up, if you ever mean to be free!" He sprang up, went
immediately out, and in the course of two hours discovered the
means of escape which he used.

A lady whose history is known to the writer resided for some time
on a Southern plant