My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey
Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than
either my grandmother or grandfather.
My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard
speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my
father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of
knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an
infant—before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of
Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very
early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its
mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance
off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field
labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder
the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and
destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the
inevitable result.
I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in
my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night. She
was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She made
her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot,
after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping
is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special
permission from his or her master to the contrary—a permission which they
seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a
kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day.
She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep,
but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place
between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and
with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old,
on one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not allowed to be present
during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew
any thing about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing
presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death
with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a
stranger.
Called thus suddenly away, she left me without the slightest intimation of
who my father was. The whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be
true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose whilst
the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have
ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all
cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to
administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires
profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the
slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of
master and father.
I know of such cases; and it is worthy of remark that such slaves
invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with, than others.
They are, in the first place, a constant offence to their mistress. She is ever
disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom do any thing to please her;
she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash, especially
when she suspects her husband of showing to his mulatto children favors which
he withholds from his black slaves. The master is frequently compelled to sell
this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife;
and, cruel as the deed may strike any one to be, for a man to sell his own
children to human flesh-mongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to
do so; for, unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must
stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but few shades darker
complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back; and if he
lisp one word of disapproval, it is set down to his parental partiality, and
only makes a bad matter worse, both for himself and the slave whom he would
protect and defend.
Every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves. It was
doubtless in consequence of a knowledge of this fact, that one great statesman
of the south predicted the downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of
population. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled or not, it is nevertheless
plain that a very different-looking class of people are springing up at the
south, and are now held in slavery, from those originally brought to this
country from Africa; and if their increase do no other good, it will do away
the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery
is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally
enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural;
for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their
existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own
masters.
I have had two masters. My first master's name was Anthony. I do not
remember his first name. He was generally called Captain Anthony—a title which,
I presume, he acquired by sailing a craft on the Chesapeake Bay. He was not
considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three farms, and about thirty
slaves. His farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer. The overseer's
name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and
a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I
have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master
would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not
mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required
extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a
cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to
take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn
of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used
to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally
covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim,
seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed,
the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped
longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush;
and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted
cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I
was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I
remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of
which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful
force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery,
through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I
could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.
This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old
master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one
night,—where or for what I do not know,—and happened to be absent when my
master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go out evenings, and
warned her that she must never let him catch her in company with a young man,
who was paying attention to her belonging to Colonel Lloyd. The young man's
name was Ned Roberts, generally called Lloyd's Ned. Why master was so careful
of her, may be safely left to conjecture. She was a woman of noble form, and of
graceful proportions, having very few equals, and fewer superiors, in personal
appearance, among the colored or white women of our neighborhood.
Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had been
found in company with Lloyd's Ned; which circumstance, I found, from what he
said while whipping her, was the chief offence. Had he been a man of pure
morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the
innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such
virtue. Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen,
and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back,
entirely naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time
a d——d b—-h. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led
her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made
her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. She now stood fair for
his infernal purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that
she stood upon the ends of her toes. He then said to her, "Now, you d——d
b—-h, I'll learn you how to disobey my orders!" and after rolling up his
sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood
(amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping
to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid
myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody
transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to
me. I had never seen any thing like it before. I had always lived with my
grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation, where she was put to raise the
children of the younger women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way
of the bloody scenes that often occurred on the plantation.
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