slaves. But as near as I can judge, I was born in the year 1819 or 1820.
I do not know either the month or the year of my birth, and it would not be an exaggeration for me to say that there is not one human being in a thousand who was born a slave who knows his exact age; and it would have been much better for me if I had never been born. The true meaning of the words "born a slave" will never be known only to those who were born and nurtured beneath its dismal shadow. Fifty or sixty years ago, slavery in America was in its zenith, and it was the most unrighteous burden ever imposed on a race of people, black or white, civilized or uncivilized. Until I was nineteen or twenty years of age I belonged to Dr. Seaman, who also owned my father and mother. In the month of August, 1841, I was taken from home and confined in the slave pen at Petersburg, Virginia, where six hundred other slaves were awaiting transportation to different Southern cotton farms. The slave pen where we were kept was a one-story shed or building about one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, and was used as a store house for slaves.
It was a partnership building, owned by Natt Blake and General Downs, and was a dismal looking structure, its swaying roof and sunken corners, its sun-warped sides, in fact, all of its appearance seemed to be in sympathy with the echos and groans of slaves which were continually shaking it.
I have never seen or heard of my father or mother since the day I stepped inside of that slave pen. But nature has sown an imperishable germ in the hearts of all children, black or white, bond or free, and the memory of my old mother will ever be perpetuated. And to-night it is just as fresh and green as the day I was separated from her, which was more than fifty years ago; and I am well aware, as the days flash by and the older I grow, I am being drawn face to face with my father and mother who died in Old Virginia long before the war. Why, what power can equal that which confers existence and reason? and what recollections can last so long as the remembrances of mother and father?
You can rob man of his love, friendship, honor; you can deprive him of his liberty, justice; rob him of the light of the sun; rob him of the gentle zephyrs that kiss the wildest flowers and sway the forest oaks; but you cannot rob him of his parental memory.
After remaining six weeks in the slave pen at Petersburg, we were all marched on board a boat called the "Pellican," and started for our destination, New Orleans. It would be impossible for any man to draw the faintest idea of the horrible position in which we were placed while on the boat. It is indescribable.
Men, women and children were packed beneath the hatches like cattle. Think of six hundred human beings living six weeks in the hold of a vessel 180 feet long, 40 feet wide and 10 feet high. There was no air to be had, for the only means of receiving air was by three small grated windows on either side of the boat, two feet long and eight inches wide; and when sea sickness began among us it was surely one of the most horrible places ever visited by a human being. I believe it would have been dangerous for any boat to have anchored within rods of us or traveled in our wake, for the odor from that filthy boat was poisonous to breathe — — cholera and sure death. Surely the "Pellican" was a floating carcass on the sea. Thirty-one of our number died before we reached the southern coast of Florida, and the last five that died were thrown into the ocean just before we reached Florida Straits, and the sharks that were in swarms around us soon had the surrounding water red with human blood.
Six weeks from the day we left Petersburg we arrived at New Orleans, where we were again placed in another slave pen; and it will never be possible for me to speak, write or by any means adequately explain the horrible condition of that slave pen. It was worse than any cattle yard I have ever seen north of the Ohio river.
It was a sickening place! No wonder Louisiana is the hot bed of the terrible disease called yellow fever. But I suppose the black race is the only race on the globe that cannot, or will not, let their grief and adversities completely overwhelm them. They will sing and dance in the midst of famine, as well as in the midst of abundance; in chains as in liberty. Nearly the entire length of Grand street, in New Orleans, on either side, was one solid row of buildings where human beings were incarcerated waiting for a purchaser.
Some of them were singing and praying; while others were drowning their sorrows by dancing or telling funny stories. Very frequently you could see a woman sitting on one of the old rough benches, with her elbows resting on her knee, her hands supporting her chin, and her eyes staring at the floor. It was not necessary to inquire what was the subject of her meditations; for in her countenance was depicted the very thoughts of her soul; and it was visible to all that her mind was in the old log cabin way up in Old Virginia, where she left her little babe; insanity's cold glitter had already began to curdle in her eye. I believe that every supernatural cause is equally as impenetrable to man; and just as sure as the thunderbolt trails in the wake of the lightning's flash, those Southern cyclones, earthquake shocks and yellow fevers that are daily haunting Southern soil are only the re-echos of many slave groans—just retribution from on high. Man is the only sensible being who forms his reason by continued observation. His education begins with his life, and only ends with his death. His days would pass away in perpetual uncertainty, unless the impression of different objects and the various scenes and flexibility of his brain in early life gave to the impression of his memory a character not to be effaced. At that period are formed ideas and observations which may influence his whole life. Man's first affections are likewise his last. They accompany him amid all the events with which his days are checkered. They re-appear in old age and revive the recollections of his infancy with still more force than even those of mature age.
After remaining about three months in the slave pen at New Orleans, my purchaser arrived. And it seemed to me as though I knew the very minute he was coming by my feelings. I am not superstitious; but yet it seemed to me as though I could hear his voice, and was in his presence long before he arrived. The night preceding the day I was sold I had a presentiment that something was about to occur which was of a character I did not wish to meet. The dreadful feeling completely unnerved me. In twenty-four hours I became a physical wreck, and was mentally tortured until I must have been on the very verge of insanity.
Oh! how I did long to be with my father and mother in the old log cabin 'way up in old Virginia. And in my dreams I was in old Virginia, on the same old plantation, using the same old hoe.
But it was only a dream, and the last one that I ever had in New Orleans, for the shrill blast of the watchman's bugle bade us rise up; for it was five o'clock and we must get ready for our daily rations of corn-meal and bacon.
It would have been impossible for me to have tasted of the most delicious meal that was ever prepared for a king. Why, I felt as though some unseen hand was ready to grasp me; even my own shadow seemed to be breathing and watching me; my own footsteps seemed to rattle like the hoofs of the Negro driver's horse on the distant turnpike.
The uncontrollable hallucination did not deceive me; for the very hour had arrived which was to determine all the joys and sorrows of my future life. Before eight o'clock I heard the keys rattling and the door swung open, and the overseer of the slave pen called the following names: Will Clark, Henry Jones, Sarah Tompkins, Nancy Day and William Walker.
The last name was my own, and on going forward I was brought face to face with Dick Fallon, my purchaser, and the worst human being that ever drew bloody groans from a slave. The four other slaves had been bought for John Porter (an uncle of Frank Porter, now living in Detroit, Mich.)
CHAPTER II
DICK FALLON, THE DEVIL'S BROTHER — NANCY, THE OCTOROON GIRL — THE COTTON FIELD — THE MURDER
BUT I was the property of Ed. Purgoo, and Dick Fallon was Purgoo's Negro driver. The very name of Dick Fallon was terrorizing to all the slaves from North Carolina to Texas.
He was a man (or perhaps we had better call him a demon) about thirty-five years of age, Irish by birth, sandy complexion and a short stubby mustache, small glittering eyes that seemed to sit too far back in his head and which made them glitter like the eyes of a deadly serpent. He could also boast of being the possessor of a small round, head, large neck,