The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive

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WHITESLAVE;

OR,

Contents

CONTENTS

|Chapter 1 | |Memoirs | |5

Chapter 2 | The county in which I was born | |7

Chapter 1

MEMOIRS.

CHAPTER I.

Ye who would know what evils man can inflict upon his fellew without reluctance, hesitation, or regret; ye who would! earn the limit of human endurance, and with what bitter anguish and indignant hate, the heart may swell, and yet not burst, — peruse these Memoirs!

Mine are no silken sorrows, nor sentimental sufferings; but that stern reality of actual woe, the story of which, may perhaps touch even some of those, who are every day themselves the authors of misery the same that I endured. For however the practice of tyranny may have deadened every better emotion, and the prejudices of education and interest may have hardened the heart, humanity will still extort an involuntary tribute; and men will grow uneasy at hearing of those deeds, of which the doing does not cost them a moment's inquietude,

Should I accomplish no more than this; should I be able, through the triple steel with which the love of money and the lust of domination has encircled it, to reach one bosom, — let the story of my wrongs summon up, in the mind of a single oppressor, the dark and dreaded images of his own misdeeds, and teach his conscience how to torture him with the picture of himself, and I shall be content. Next to the tears and the exultations of the emancipated, the remorse of tyrants is the choicest offering upon the altar of liberty! But perhaps something more may be possible; — not likely — but to be imagined — and it may be, even faintly to be hoped. Perhaps within some youthful breast, in which the evil spirits of avarice and tyranny have as yet failed to gain unlimited control, I may be able to rekindle the smothered and expiring embers of humanity. Spite of habits and prejudices inculcated and fostered from his earliest childhood, spite of the enticements of wealth and political distinction, and the still stronger enticements of indolence and ease, spite of the pratings of hollow-hearted priests, spite of the arguments of time-serving sophists, spite of the hesitation and terrors of the weak-spirited and wavering; in spite of evil precept and evil example, he dares — that generous and heroic youth! — to cherish and avow the feelings of a man.

Another Saul among the prophets, he prophesies terrible things in the ear of insolent and luxurious tyranny; in the midst of tyrants he dares to preach the good tidings of liberty; in the very school of oppression, he stands boldly forth the advocate of human rights!

He breaks down the ramparts of prejudice; he dissipates the illusions of avarice and pride; he repeals the enactments, which though wanting every feature of justice, have sacrilegiously usurped the sacred form of law! He snatches the whip from the hand of the master; he breaks — forever the fetter of the slave!

In place of reluctant. toil, drudging for another, he brings. in smiling industry to labor for herself! All nature seems to exult in the change! "The earth, no longer made barren by the tears and the blood of her children, pours forth her treasures with redoubled liberality. Existence ceases to be torture; and to live is no longer to millions, the certainty of being miserable.

Chosen Instrument of Mercy! Illustrious Deliverer! Come! come quickly!

Come! — lest, if thy coming be delayed, there come in thy place, he who will be at once, Deliverer and Avenger !

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

The county in which I was born, was then, and for aught I know, may still be one of the richest and most populous in eastern Virginia. My father, colonel Charles Moore, was the head of one of the most considerable and influential families in that part of the country; — and family, however little weight it may have in other parts of America, at the time I was born, was a thing of no slight consequence in lower Virginia. Nature and education had combined to qualify colonel Moore to fill with credit, the station in» which his birth had placed him. He was: a finished aristocrat; and such he showed himself in every word, look and action. "There was in his bearing, a conscious superiority which few could resist, softened and rendered even agreeable by a gentleness and suavity, which flattered, pleased and captivated. In fact, he was familiarly spoken of among his friends and neighbors, as the faultless pattern of a true Virginian gentleman — an encomium by which they supposed themselves to convey, in the most emphatic manner, the highest possible praise.

When the war of the American Revolution broke out, colonel Moore was a very young man. By birth and education, he belonged, as I have said, to the aristocratic party, which being aristocratic, was of course, conservative. But, the impulses of youth and patriotism were too strong to be resisted. He espoused with zeal, the cause of liberty, and by his political activity and influence, contributed not a little to its success.

Of liberty indeed, he was always a warm and energetic admirer. Among my earliest recollections of him, is the earnestness with which, among his friends and guests, he used to vindicate the cause of the French revolution, then going on. Of that revolution, throughout its whole progress, he was a most eloquent advocate and apologist; and though I understood little or nothing of what he said, the spirit and eloquence with which he spoke.could not fail to affect me. The rights of man, and the rights of human nature were phrases, which, although at that time, I was quite unconscious of their meaning, I heard so often repeated, that they made an indelible impression upon my memory, and in after years, frequently recurred to my recollection.

But colonel Moore was not a mere talker; he had the credit of acting up to his principles, and was universally regarded as a man of the greatest good nature, honor and uprightness. Several promising young men, who afterwards rose to eminence, were indebted for their first start in life, to his patronage and assistance. He settled half the differences in the county, and never seemed so well pleased as when by preventing a lawsuit or a duel, he hindered an accidental and perhaps trifling dispute from degenerating into a bitter, if not a fatal quarrel. 'The tenderness of his heart, his ready, active benevolence, and his sympathy with misfortune, were traits in his character spoken of by every body.

Had I been allowed to choose my own paternity, could I possibly have selected a more desirable father? — But by the laws and customs of Virginia, it is not the father but the mother, whose rank and condition determine that of the child; — and alas! my mother was a concubine, and a slave!

Yet those who beheld her for the first time, would hardly have imagined, or would willingly have forgotten, that she was connected with an ignoble and degraded race. Humble as her station might be, she could at least boast possession of the most brilliant beauty. The trace of African blood, by which her veins were contaminated, was distinctly visible; — but the tint which it imparted to her complexion only served to give a peculiar richness to the blush that mantled over her cheek. Her long black hair, which she understood how to arrange with an artful simplicity, and the flashing of her dark eyes, which changed their expression with every change of feeling, corresponded exactly to her complexion, and completed a picture which might perhaps be matched in Spain or Italy, but for which, it would be in vain to seek a rival among the pale-faced and languid beauties of eastern Virginia. I describe her more like a lover than a son. But in truth, her beauty was so uncommon, as to draw my attention while I was yet a child; and many an hour have I watched her, almost with a lover's earnestness, while she fondled me on her lap, and tears and smiles chased each other alternately over a face, the expression of which was ever changing, yet always beautiful. She was the most affectionate of mothers; the mixture of tenderness, grief and pleasure, with which she always seemed to regard me, gave a new vivacity to her beauty; and it was probably this, which so early and so strongly fixed my attention.

But I was very far from being her only admirer. Her beauty was notorious through all that part of the country; and colonel Moore had been frequently tempted to sell her by the offer of very high prices. All such offers however, he had steadily rejected; for he especially prided himself upon owning the swiftest horse, the handsomest wench, and the finest pack of hounds in the "Ancient Dominion."

Now it may seem odd to some people, in some parts of the world, that colonel Moore being such a man as I have described him, should keep a mistress and be the father of illegitimate children. Such persons however, must be totally ignorant of the state of things in the slave-holding states of America.

Colonel Moore was married to an amiable woman, whom, I dare say, he loved and respected; and in the course of time, she made him the happy father of two sons and as many daughters. This circumstance however, did not hinder him, any more than it does any other American planter, from giving, in the mean time, a very free indulgence to his amorous temperament among his numerous slaves at Spring-Meadow, — for so his estate was called. Many of the young women occasionally boasted of his attentions; though generally, at any one time, he did not have more than one or two acknowledged favorites.

My mother was for several years, distinguished by colonel Moore's very particular regard; and she brought him no less than six children, all of whom, except myself, who was the eldest, were lucky enough to die in infancy.

From my mother I inherited some imperceptible portion of African blood, and with it, the base and cursed condition of a slave. But though born a slave, I inherited all my father's proud spirit, sensitive feelings and ardent temperament; and as regards natural endowments, whether of mind or body, I am bold to assert, that he had more reason to be proud of me than of either of his legitimate and acknowledged sons.

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Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

That education is the most effectual, which commences earliest — a maxim well understood in that part of the world in which it was my misfortune to be born. As it sometimes happens there, that one half of a man's children are born masters and the other half slaves, it has become sufficiently obvious how necessary it is, to begin, by times, the course of discipline proper to train them up for these very different situations. It is, accordingly, the general custom, that young master, almost from the hour of his birth, has allotted to him, some little slave near his own age, upon whom he begins, from the time he can go alone, to practise his apprenticeship of tyranny. It so happened that within less than a year after my birth, colonel Moore's wife presented him with her second son, James; and while we both slept unconscious in our cradles, I was duly assigned over and appointed to be the body-servant of my younger brother. It is in this capacity, of master James's boy, that following back the traces of memory, I first discover myself.

The natural and usual consequences of giving one child absolute authority over another, may be easily imagined. The love of domination is perhaps the strongest of our passions, and it is surprising how soon the veriest child will become perfect in the practice of tyranny. Of this, colonel Moore's eldest son, William, or master William, as he was called at Spring-Meadow, was a striking instance. He was the terror and bugbear, not only of Joe, his own boy, but of all the children on the place. "That unthinking and irrational delight in the exercise of cruelty, which is some times displayed by a wayward child, seemed in him, almost a passion; and this passion, by perpetual indulgence, was soon fostered into a habit. When any delinquent slave was to be punished, he contrived if possible to find it out, and to be present at the infliction; so that he soon became an adept in all the horrible practices and disgusting slang of an overseer. He always went armed with a whip, twice as long as himself, and upon the least opposition to his whims and caprices, was ready to show his skill in the use of it. All this he took some little pains to conceal from his father; who however, was pretty careful not to see what he could, by no means, approve, but what, at the same time — indulgent father as he was — he would have found it very difficult to prevent or to cure.

Master James, to whose service, I was particularly appointed, was a very different boy. Sickly and weak from his birth, his temper was gentle and his mind effeminate. He had an affectionate disposition, and soon conceived a fondness for me, which I very thankfully returned. He protected me from the tyranny of master William by his entreaties, his tears, and what had much more weight with that amiable youth, by threats of complaining to his father, and making a complete exposure of his brutal and cruel behavior.

I soon learned to put up with and to pardon, an occasional pettishness and ill humor, for which master James's bad health furnished a ready excuse; and by flattery and apparent obsequiousness, for a child learns and practises such arts as readily as a man, I presently came to have a great influence over him. He was the master, and I the slave; but while we were both children, this artificial distinction had less potency, and I found little difficulty in maintaining that actual pre-eminence, to which my superior vigor both of body and mind, so justly entitled me.

When master James had reached the age of five years, it was judged expedient by his father, that he should be initiated into the rudiments of learning. To learn the letters was a laborious undertaking enough, — but for putting them into words, my young master seemed to have no genius whatever. He was not destitute of ambition; he was indeed very desirous to learn; it was the ability, not the inclination that was wanting. In this difficulty, he had recourse to me, who was on all occasions, his chief counsellor. By putting our heads together, we soon hit upon a plan. My memory was remarkably good, while that of my poor little master was very miserable. We arranged therefore, that the family tutor should first teach me the letters and the abs, which my strong memory, we thought, would enable me easily to retain, and which I was gradually, and between plays, as opportunity served, to instill into the mind of master James. 'This plan we found to answer admirably. Neither the tutor nor colonel Moore made any objection to it; for all that colonel Moore desired was, that his son should learn to read; and the tutor was very willing to shift off the most laborious part of his task upon my shoulders.

As yet, no one had dreamed of those barbarous and detestable laws — unparalleled in any other codes, and destined to be the everlasting disgrace of America — by which it has been made a crime, punishable with fine and imprisonment, to teach a slave to read.

It is not enough that custom and the proud scorn of unfeeling tyranny unite to keep the slave in hopeless and helpless ignorance, but the laws too have openly become a party to this accursed conspiracy! Yes, I believe they would tear out our very eyes, — and that too by virtue of a regularly enacted statute — had they ingenuity enough to invent a way of enabling us to drudge and delve without — them!

I soon learned to read, and before long, I made master — James almost as good a reader as myself. As he was subject to frequent fits of illness, which confined him to the — house, and disabled him from indulging in those native sports to which boys are chiefly devoted, his father obtained for him a large collection of books adapted to his age, which he and I used to read over together, and in which we took great delight.

In the further progress of my young master's studies I was still his associate; for though the plan of teaching me — first, in order that I might afterwards teach him, was pur no longer, yet as I had a desire to learn, as well as a quick apprehension, I found no difficulty in extracting every day from master James, the substance of his lessons. Indeed, if there was any difficulty in them, he was in the constant habit of appealing to me for assistance. In this way, I acquired some elementary knowledge of arithmetic and geography, and even a smattering of latin.

These' acquisitions however, I took great pains to conceal, since even the fact that I could read, though it increased my consequence among the servants, exposed me to a good deal of ridicule to which I was very sensitive. I was not looked upon, as I suppose they now look upon a slave, who knows how to read and who exhibits some marks of sense and ability, as a dreadful monster breathing war and rebellion, and plotting to cut the throats of all the good people in America; I was regarded rather as a sort of prodigy — like a three legged hen, or a sheep with four eyes; a thing to be produced and exhibited for the entertainment of strangers. Frequently at a dinner party, after the Madeira had circulated pretty freely, I was set to read paragraphs in the newspapers, to amuse my master's tipsy guests, and was puzzled, perplexed and tormented, by all sorts of absurd, ridiculous, and impertinent questions, which 1 was obliged to answer under penalty of having a wine glass, a bottle, or a plate flung at my head. Master William especially, as he was prevented from using his whip upon me, as freely as he wished, strove to indemnify himself by making me the butt of his wit. He took great pride in the nick-name of the "learned nigger," which he had invented and always applied to me; — though God knows, that my cheek was little less fair than his, and I cannot help hoping that at least, my soul was whiter.

These, it may be thought, were trifling vexations. In truth they were so; but it cost me many a struggle before I could learn to endure them with any tolerable patience. I was compensated in some measure, by the pleasure I took in listening, as I stood behind my master's chair, to the conversation of the company, — I mean their conversation before they set regularly in to drinking; for every dinner party was sure to wind up with a general frolic.

Colonel Moore kept an open house, and almost every day, he had some of his friends, relatives, or neighbors, at his table. He was himself an eloquent and most agreeable talker; his voice was soft and musical, and he always expressed himself with a great deal of point and vivacity. Many of his guests were well informed men; and though politics was always the leading topic of conversation, a great variety of other subjects were occasionally discussed. Colonel Moore, as I have already observed, was himself a warm democrat — republican was then the phrase — for democrat, however fond the Americans have since become of the name, was at that time regarded as an epithet of reproach. The greater part of those who frequented colonel Moore's house, entertained the same liberal opinions on political subjects. I listened to their conversation with eagerness and pleasure; and when I heard them talk of equal rights, and declaim against tyranny and oppression, my heart would swell with emotions of which I scarcely understood the meaning. All this time, I made no persona! application of what I heard and felt. It was only the abstract beauty of liberty and equality, of which I had learned to be enamored. It was the French republicans with whom I sympathized; it was the Austrian and English tyrants against whom my indignation was roused; it was John Adams and his atrocious gag law. I had not yet learned to think about myself. What I saw around me I had always been accustomed to see, and it appeared as it were, the fixed order of nature. Though born a slave, I had, as yet, experienced scarcely any thing of the miseries of that wretched condition. I was singularly fortunate in my young master, to whom I was, in many respects, as much a companion as a servant. By his favor, and through means of my mother, who still continued a favorite with colonel Moore, I enjoyed more indulgences than any other servant on the place. Comparing my situation with that of the field hands, I might pronounce myself fortunate indeed; and though exposed to occasional mortifications, enough to give me already a foretaste of the bitter cup which every one who lives a slave must swallow, my youth and the buoyant vivacity of my temper has yet sustained me. At this time, I did not know that colonel Moore was my father. That gentleman was indebted for no inconsiderable part of his high reputation, to a very strict attention to those conventional observances which so often usurp the place of morals. Some observances of this sort, which prevail in America, are sufficiently remarkable. It is considered for instance, no crime whatever, for a master to be, if he chooses, the father of every infant slave born upon his plantation. Yet it is esteemed a very grave breach of propriety, indeed almost an unpardonable crime, for such a father ever, in any way, to acknowledge or take any notice, of any of his unfortunate children. Imperious custom demands that he should treat them, in every respect, like his other slaves. If he drive them into the field to labor, if he sell them at auction to the highest bidder, it is all well. But if he audaciously undertake to exhibit towards them, in any way, the slightest indication of paternal tenderness, he may be sure that his character will be assailed by the tongue of universal slander; that his every weak point and unjustifiable action will be carefully sought out, malignantly magnified, and ostentatiously exposed; that he will be compelled to run a sort of moral gantlet, and will be represented among all the better sort of people, as every thing that is infamous, base and contemptible.

Colonel Moore was far too wise a man, to entertain the slightest idea of exposing himself to any thing of that sort. He had always kept the best society, — and though he might be a democrat in politics, he was certainly very much of an aristocrat and an exclusive in his feelings. Of course, he had the same sort of indescribable horror, at the thought of violating any of the settled proprieties of the society in which he moved, that a modern belle has of cotton lace, or a modern dandy of an iron fork, This being the case, nobody will wonder — so far at least as colonel Moore had any control over the matter — that I was still ignorant who my father was.

But though a secret to me, it certainly was not colonel Moore's friends and visitors. If nothing else, betrayed it, the striking resemblance between us, would certainly have done so; and although that same regard to propriety, which prevented colonel Moore from ever noticing the relationship, also tied up the tongues of his guests, yet, after I had learned the secret, there immediately occurred to my mind the true explanation of certain sly jests and distant allusions, which had sometimes been dropped towards the end of a dinner, by some of those guests whom deep potations had inspired at once with wit and veracity. These brilliancies, of which I had never been able to understand the meaning, were always ill received by colonel Moore, and by all the soberer part of the company, and were frequently followed by a command to me and the other servants to quit the room; but why or wherefore, till I became possessed of the key above mentioned, 1 was always at a great loss to determine.

The secret which my father did not choose, and which my mother did not dare to communicate, I might easily have obtained from my fellow servants. But at this time, like most of the lighter complexioned slaves, I felt a sort of contempt for my duskier brothers in misfortune. I kept myself as much as possible, at a distance from them, and scorned to associate with men a little darker than myself. So ready are slaves to imbibe all the ridiculous prejudices of their oppressors, and themselves to. add new links to the chain, which deprives them of their liberty!

But let me do my father justice; for I do not believe that he was totally destitute of a father's feelings. Though he never made the slightest acknowledgment of the claims which I had upon him, yet I am sure, in his own heart, he did not totally deny their validity. There was a tone of good natured indulgence whenever he spoke to me, an air of kindness, which though he always had it, seemed toward me, to have in it something peculiar. At any rate, he succeeded in captivating my affections; for though I regarded him only as my master, I loved him very sincerely

Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.

I was about seventeen years old, when my mother was attacked. by a fever, which proved fatal to her. She ear! had a presentiment of her fate; and before the disorder had made any great progress, she sent me word that she desired to see me. I found her in bed. She begged the woman who nursed her, to leave us together, and bade me sit down by her bed-side. Having told me that she feared she was going to die, she could not think it kind to me, she said, to leave the world, without first telling me a secret, which possibly, I might find hereafter of some consequence. I begged her to go on, and waited with impatience for the promised information. She began with a short account of her own life. Her mother was a slave; her father was a certain colonel Randolph — a scion of one of the great Virginian families. She had been raised as a lady's maid, and on the marriage of colonel Moore, had been purchased by him and presented to his wife. She was then quite a girl. As she grew older and her beauty became more noticeable, she found much favor in the eyes of her master. She had a neat little house, with a double set of rooms — an arrangement, as much for colonel Moore's convenience as her own; and though some light tasks of needle-work were sometimes required of her, yet as nobody chose to quarrel with master's favorite, she lived, henceforward, a very careless, indolent, but as she told me, a very unhappy life.

For a part of this unhappiness she was indebted to herself. The air of superiority she assumed in her intercourse with the other servants, made them all hate her, and induced them to improve every opportunity of vexing and mortifying her; — and to all sorts of feminine mortifications she was as sensitive as any belle that ever existed. But though vain of her beauty and her master's favor, she was not ill-tempered; and the foolish pride from which she suffered, sprung in her, as a similar feeling did in me, from a groundless, though common prejudice. Indeed our situation was so superior to that of most of the other slaves, that we naturally imagined ourselves, in some sort, a superior race. It was doubtless under the influence of this feeling, that my mother, having told me who my father was, observed with a smile and a self-complacent air, which even the tremors of her fever did not prevent from being apparent, that both on the father's and the mother's side, I had running in my veins, the best blood of Virginia — the blood, she added, of the Moores and the Randolphs!

Alas! she did not seem to recollect that though I might count all the nobles of Virginia among my ancestors, one drop of blood imported from Africa — though that too, might be the blood of kings and chieftains, — would be enough to taint the whole pedigree, and to condemn me to perpetual slavery, even in the house of my own father!

The information which my mother communicated, made little impression upon me at the moment. My principal anxiety was for her; for she had always been the tenderest and most affectionate of parents. The progress of her disorder was rapid, and on the third day she ceased to live. I lamented her with the sincerest grief. The sharpness of my sorrow was soon over; but my spirits did not seem to regain their former tone. 'The thoughtless gaiety, which till now had shed a sort of sunshine over my life, seemed to desert me. My thoughts began to recur very frequently, to the information which my mother had communicated. I hardly know how to describe the effect which it seemed to have upon me. Nor is it easy to tell what were its actual effects, or what ought to be ascribed to other and more general causes. Perhaps that revolution of feeling, which I now experienced, should be attributed in a great measure, to the change from boyhood to manhood, through which I was passing. Hitherto things had seemed to happen like the events of a dream, without touching me deeply or affecting me permanently. I was sometimes vexed and dissatisfied; I had my occasional sorrows and complaints. But those sorrows were soon over, and as after summer showers the sun shines out the brighter, so my transient sadness was soon succeeded by a more lively gaiety, which, as soon as immediate grievances were forgotten, burst forth, unsubdued either reflections on the past, or anxieties for the future. In that gaiety there was indeed scarcely anything of substantial pleasure; it originated rather in a careless insensibility. It was like the glare of the moon-beams, bright, but cold. Such as it was however, it was far more comfortable, than the state of feeling by which it now began to be succeeded. My mind seemed to be filled with indefinite anxieties, of which I could divine neither the causes nor the cure. There was, as it were, a heavy weight upon my bosom, an unsatisfied craving for something, I knew not what, a longing which 1 could do nothing to satisfy, because I could not tell its object. I would be often lost in thought, but my mind did not seem to fix itself to any certain aim, and after hours of apparently the deepest meditation, I should have been very much at a loss to tell about what I had been thinking.