Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America by Moses Grandy
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Moses Grandy >> Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America
NARRATIVE
OF THE
LIFE OF MOSES GRANDY,
LATE A SLAVE
IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
"Slavery is a mass, a system of enormities, which
incontrovertibly bids defiance to every regulation which
ingenuity can devise, or power effect, but a TOTAL
EXTINCTION. Why ought slavery to be abolished? Because
_it is incurable injustice_. Why is injustice to remain
for a single hour?"
WILLIAM PITT.
SECOND AMERICAN FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION.
SOLD FOR THE BENEFIT OF HIS RELATIONS STILL IN
SLAVERY.
BOSTON:
OLIVER JOHNSON, 25 CORNHILL.
1844.
*** It is not improbable that some of the proper names in the
following pages are incorrectly spelled. M.G., through the laws of the
slave states, is perfectly illiterate; his pronunciation being the
only guide.
INTRODUCTION.
About a fortnight ago, the subject of the following brief Memoir came
to me, bearing with him a letter from a dear friend and distinguished
abolitionist in the United States, from which the following is an
extract:--'I seize my pen in haste to gratify a most worthy colored
friend of mine, by giving him a letter of introduction to you, as he
intends sailing this week (August 8th, 1842) for Liverpool and London,
_via_ New Orleans. His name is Moses Grandy. He knows what it is to
have been a slave, and what are the tender mercies of the southern
slave-drivers. His history is not only authentic, but most
extraordinary, and full of thrilling interest. Could it be published,
it would make a deep sensation in every quarter. He was compelled to
buy his freedom _three times over_! He paid for it $1,850. He has
since bought his wife, and one or two of his children; and before
going to England will first go to New Orleans, to purchase some of his
other children, if he can find them, who are still held in captivity.
His benevolence, affection, kindness of heart, and elasticity of
spirit, are truly remarkable. He has a good head, a fine countenance,
and a great spirit, notwithstanding his education has been obtained in
the horrible school of slavery. Just get him to tell you his
narrative, and if you happen to have an anti-slavery meeting, let him
tell his tale to a British audience.' In the letter of another highly
esteemed friend, he is spoken of as 'unsurpassed for faithfulness and
perseverance;' in the letter of a third, as a 'worthy and respectable
man.' On examining a book containing a list of the donations made him
by American friends, in aid of his noble design to rescue from the
miseries of slavery his relations, I found the names and certificates
of persons of the highest respectability. It will be amply sufficient
with those who are acquainted with the Abolitionists of the United
States, for me to name General Fessenden, and Nathan Winslow, Esq., of
Portland, Maine; the Rev. A.A. Phelps, Ellis Gray Loring, and Samuel
E. Sewall, Esqs., of Boston, Massachusetts. Being satisfied, by these
indubitable vouchers, of Moses Grandy's title to credit, I listened to
his artless tale with entire confidence, and with a feeling of
interest which all will participate who peruse the following pages.
Considering his Narrative calculated to promote a more extensive
knowledge of the workings of American slavery, and that its sale might
contribute to the object which engages so entirely the mind of Moses,
namely, the redemption of those who are in bonds, belonging to his
family, I resolved to commit it to the press, as nearly as possible in
the language of Moses himself. I have carefully abstained from casting
a single reflection or animadversion of my own. I leave the touching
story of the self-liberated captive to speak for itself, and the wish
of my heart will be gratified, and my humble effort on his behalf be
richly rewarded, if this little book is the means of obtaining for my
colored brother the assistance which he seeks, or of increasing the
zeal of those who are associated for the purpose of 'breaking every
yoke and setting the oppressed free.'
GEORGE THOMPSON.
_9, Blandford Place, Regent's Park_,
_October 18th, 1842._
NARRATIVE.
My name is Moses Grandy. I was born in Camden county, North Carolina.
I believe I am fifty-six years old. Slaves seldom know exactly how old
they are; neither they nor their masters set down the time of a birth;
the slaves, because they are not allowed to write or read, and the
masters, because they only care to know what slaves belong to them.
The master, Billy Grandy, whose slave I was born, was a hard-drinking
man; he sold away many slaves. I remember four sisters and four
brothers; my mother had more children, but they were dead or sold away
before I can remember. I was the youngest. I remember well my mother
often hid us all in the woods, to prevent master selling us. When we
wanted water, she sought for it in any hole or puddle formed by
falling trees or otherwise. It was often full of tadpoles and insects.
She strained it, and gave it round to each of us in the hollow of her
hand. For food, she gathered berries in the woods, got potatoes, raw
corn, &c. After a time, the master would send word to her to come in,
promising he would not sell us. But, at length, persons came who
agreed to give the prices he set on us. His wife, with much to be
done, prevailed on him not to sell me; but he sold my brother, who was
a little boy. My mother, frantic with grief, resisted their taking her
child away. She was beaten, and held down; she fainted; and, when she
came to herself, her boy was gone. She made much outcry, for which the
master tied her up to a peach-tree in the yard, and flogged her.
Another of my brothers was sold to Mr. Tyler, Dewan's Neck, Pasquotank
county. This man very much ill treated many colored boys. One very
cold day, he sent my brother out, naked and hungry, to find a yoke of
steers; the boy returned without finding them, when his master flogged
him, and sent him out again. A white lady, who lived near, gave him
food, and advised him to try again; he did so, but, it seems, again
without success. He piled up a heap of leaves, and laid himself down
in them, and died there. He was found through a flock of turkey
buzzards hovering over him; these birds had pulled his eyes out.
My young master and I used to play together; there was but two days'
difference in our ages. My old master always said he would give me to
him. When he died, all the colored people were divided amongst his
children, and I fell to young master; his name was James Grandy. I was
then about eight years old. When I became old enough to be taken away
from my mother and put to field work, I was hired out for the year, by
auction, at the court house, every January: this is the common
practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under
age. This continued till my master and myself were twenty-one years
old.
The first who hired me was Mr. Kemp, who used me pretty well; he gave
me plenty to eat, and sufficient clothing.
The next was old Jemmy Coates, a severe man. Because I could not learn
his way of hilling corn, he flogged me naked with a severe whip, made
of a very tough sapling; this lapped round me at each stroke; the
point of it at last entered my belly and broke off, leaving an inch
and a half outside. I was not aware of it until, on going to work
again, it hurt my inside very much, when, on looking down, I saw it
sticking out of my body. I pulled it out, and the blood spouted after
it. The wound festered, and discharged very much at the time, and hurt
me for years after.
In being hired out, sometimes the slave gets a good home, and
sometimes a bad one: when he gets a good one, he dreads to see January
come; when he has a bad one, the year seems five times as long as it
is.
I was next with Mr. Enoch Sawyer, of Camden county. My business was to
keep ferry, and do other odd work. It was cruel living. We had not
near enough of either victuals or clothes. I was half starved for half
my time. I have often ground the husks of Indian corn over again in a
hand-mill, for the chance of getting something to eat out of it which
the former grinding had left. In severe frosts, I was compelled to go
into the fields and woods to work, with my naked feet cracked and
bleeding from extreme cold: to warm them, I used to rouse an ox or
hog, and stand on the place where it had lain. I was at that place
three years, and very long years they seemed to me. The trick by which
he kept me so long was this: the court house was but a mile off. At
hiring day, he prevented me from going till he went himself and bid
for me. On the last occasion, he was detained for a little while by
other business; so I ran as quickly as I could, and got hired before
he came up.
Mr. George Furley was my next master; he employed me as a car-boy in
the Dismal Swamp; I had to drive lumber, &c. I had plenty to eat and
plenty of clothes. I was so overjoyed at the change, that I then
thought I would not have left the place to go to heaven.
Next year I was hired by Mr. John Micheau, of the same county, who
married my young mistress, one of the daughters of Mr. Grandy, and
sister of my present owner. This master gave us very few clothes, and
but little to eat. I was almost naked. One day he came into the field,
and asked why no more work was done. The older people were afraid of
him; so I said that the reason was, we were so hungry we could not
work. He went home and told the mistress to give us plenty to eat, and
at dinner-time we had plenty. We came out shouting for joy, and went
to work with delight. From that time we had food enough, and he soon
found that he had a great deal more work done. The field was quite
alive with people striving who should do most.
He hired me for another year. He was a great gambler. He kept me up
five nights together, without sleep night or day, to wait on the
gambling table. I was standing in the corner of the room, nodding for
want of sleep, when he took up the shovel and beat me with it; he
dislocated my shoulder, and sprained my wrist, and broke the shovel
over me. I ran away, and got another person to hire me.
This person was Mr. Richard Furley, who, after that, hired me at the
court house every year till my master came of age. He gave me a pass
to work for myself; so I obtained work by the piece where I could, and
paid him out of my earnings what we had agreed on; I maintained myself
on the rest, and saved what I could. In this way I was not liable to
be flogged and ill used. He paid seventy, eighty, or ninety dollars a
year for me, and I paid him twenty or thirty dollars a year more than
that.
When my master came of age, he took all his colored people to himself.
Seeing that I was industrious and persevering, and had obtained plenty
of work, he made me pay him almost twice as much as I had paid Mr.
Furley. At that time the English blockaded the Chesapeake, which made
it necessary to send merchandise from Norfolk to Elizabeth City by the
Grand Canal, so that it might get to sea by Pamlico Sound and Ocracock
Inlet. I took some canal boats on shares; Mr. Grice, who married my
other young mistress, was the owner of them. I gave him one half of
all I received for freight; out of the other half I had to victual and
man the boats, and all over that expense was my own profit.
Some time before this, my brother Benjamin returned from the West
Indies, where he had been two years with his master's vessel. I was
very glad to hear of it, and got leave to go see him. While I was
sitting with his wife and him, his wife's master came and asked him to
fetch a can of water; he did so, and carried it into the store. While
I was waiting for him, and wondering at his being so long away, I
heard the heavy blows of a hammer: after a little while I was
alarmed, and went to see what was going on. I looked into the store,
and saw my brother lying on his back on the floor, and Mr. Williams,
who had bought him, driving staples over his wrists and ankles; an
iron bar was afterwards put across his breast, which was also held
down by staples. I asked what he had been doing, and was told that he
had done nothing amiss, but that his master had failed, and he was
sold towards paying the debts. He lay in that state all that night;
next day he was taken to jail, and I never saw him again. This is the
usual treatment under such circumstances. I had to go by my mother's
next morning, but I feared to tell her what had happened to my
brother. I got a boy to go and tell her. She was blind and very old,
and was living in a little hut, in the woods, after the usual manner
of old, worn-out slaves; she was unable to go to my brother before he
was taken away, and grieved after him greatly.
It was some time after this that I married a slave belonging to Mr.
Enoch Sawyer, who had been so hard a master to me. I left her at home,
(that is, at his house,) one Thursday morning, when we had been
married about eight months. She was well, and seemed likely to be so.
We were nicely getting together our little necessaries. On the Friday,
as I was at work, as usual, with the boats, I heard a noise behind me,
on the road which ran by the side of the canal. I turned to look, and
saw a gang of slaves coming. When they came up to me, one of them
cried out, 'Moses, my dear!' I wondered who among them should know me,
and found it was my wife. She cried out to me, 'I am gone!' I was
struck with consternation. Mr. Rogerson was with them, on his horse,
armed with pistols. I said to him, 'For God's sake, have you bought my
wife?' He said he had; when I asked him what she had done, he said she
had done nothing, but that her master wanted money. He drew out a
pistol, and said that, if I went near the wagon on which she was, he
would shoot me. I asked for leave to shake hands with her, which he
refused, but said I might stand at a distance and talk with her. My
heart was so full that I could say very little. I asked leave to give
her a dram. He told Mr. Burgess, the man who was with him, to get down
and carry it to her. I gave her the little money I had in my pocket,
and bade her farewell. I have never seen or heard of her from that day
to this. I loved her as I loved my life.
Mr. Grice found that I served him faithfully. He and my young
mistress, his wife, advised me, as I was getting money fast, to try to
buy myself. By their advice, I asked my master what he would take for
me. He wanted $800; and, when I said that was too much, he replied, he
could get $1000 for me any minute. Mr. Grice afterwards went with me
to him; he said to him that I had already been more profitable to him
than any five others of his negroes, and reminded him that we had been
playfellows. In this way he got him to consent to take $600 for me. I
then went heartily to work, and, whenever I paid him for my time, I
paid him something, also, towards my freedom, for which he gave me
receipts. When I made him the last payment of the $600 for my freedom,
he tore up all the receipts. I told him he ought not to have done so;
he replied it did not signify, for, as soon as court day came, he
should give me my free papers. On Monday, in court week, I went to
him; he was playing at billiards, and would not go with me, but told
me to come again the next day; the next day he did the same, and so on
daily. I went to his sister, Mrs. Grice, and told her I feared that he
did not mean to give them to me; she said she feared so too, and sent
for him. He was a very wicked young man; he came, and cursed her, and
went out of the house. Mr. Grice was from home; on his return, he went
to my master, and told him he ought to give me my free papers; that I
had paid for myself, and it was court week, so that there was no
excuse. He promised he would; instead of which, he rode away and kept
away till court was over. Before the next court came, he sold me to
Mr. Trewitt for $600.
The way in which Mr. Trewitt came to buy me was this: I had left the
boats, and had gone with a schooner collecting lumber in Albemarle
Sound for the merchants. Coming to Elizabeth City, I found a new store
had been opened by Mr. Grice, which Mr. Sutton was keeping: the latter
gentleman was glad to see me, and was desirous that I should return to
my old employment with the canal boats, as lumber was in great demand
at Norfolk. I did so, and sold some cargoes to Mr. Moses Myers, of
Norfolk. As I was waiting at the door of his store for settlement, he
came up with Mr. Trewitt, whom I did not then know. Mr. Myers said to
Mr. Trewitt, 'Here is a captain doing business for you.' Mr. Trewitt
then asked me who had chartered the boats, and to whom I belonged. I
told him Mr. Sutton had chartered me, and that I had belonged to Mr.
James Grandy, but had bought myself. He said he would buy me; on which
Mr. Myers told him he could not, as I had already bought myself, and
further said I was one of their old war captains, and had never lost a
single thing of the property intrusted to me. Mr. Trewitt said he
would buy me, and would see about it as soon as he got to Elizabeth
City. I thought no more about it. On my return voyage, I delivered a
cargo at Elizabeth City, for Mr. Trewitt. I had been at Mr. Grice's,
the owner of the boats; and, on my going away from him to meet Mr.
Trewitt for settlement, he said he would go with me, as he wanted
money. Opposite the custom house we met Mr. Trewitt, who said, 'Well,
captain, I have bought you.' Mr. Grice said, 'Let us have no nonsense;
go and settle with him.' Angry words passed between them, one saying
he had bought me, and the other denying that he had or could, as I had
bought myself already. We all went to Mr. Grice's dwelling house;
there Mr. Trewitt settled with me about the freight, and then, jumping
up, said, 'Now I will show you, Mr. Grice, whether I am a liar or
not.' He fetched the bill of sale; on reading it, Mr. Grice's color
changed, and he sent for Mrs. Grice. When she read it, she began to
cry; seeing that, I began to cry too. She sent me to her brother, who
was at Mr. Wood's boarding house. He was playing at billiards. I said
to him, 'Master James, have you sold me?' He said, 'No.' I said he
had; when he turned round and went into another room, crying; I
followed him. All the gentlemen followed us, saying, 'Captain Grandy,
what is the matter?' I told them Master James had sold me again. They
asked him why he had done it; he said it was because people had jeered
him by saying I had more sense than he had. They would not suffer him
to remain in the boarding house, but turned him out, there and then,
with all his trunks and boxes. Mrs. Grice, his sister, sued him in my
name for my liberty, but he gained the cause. The court maintained
that I, and all I could do, belonged to him, and that he had a right
to do as he pleased with me and all my earnings, as his own property,
until he had taken me to the court house, and given me my free papers,
and until, besides that, I had been a year and a day in the Northern
States to gain my residence.
So I was forced to go to Mr. Trewitt. He agreed that, if I would pay
him the same wages as I paid my late master, and the $600 he gave for
me, he would give me my free papers. He bought two canal boats, and,
taking me out of Mr. Grice's employment, set me to work them on the
same terms as I did for my former master. I was two years and a half
in earning $600 to pay for myself the second time. Just when I had
completed the payment, he failed. On Christmas eve he gave me a letter
to take to Mr. Mews, at Newbegun Creek. I was rather unwilling to take
it, wishing to go to my wife; I told him, too, I was going to his
office to settle with him. He offered to give me two dollars to take
the letter, and said he would settle when I came back: then Mr. Shaw
came from another room, and said his vessel was ready loaded, but he
had nobody he could trust with his goods; he offered me five dollars
to take the vessel down, and deliver the goods to Mr. Knox, who also
was at Newbegun Creek. The wind was fair, and the hands on board, so I
agreed; it being Christmas eve, I was glad of something to carry to my
wife. I ran the vessel down to the mouth of the creek, and anchored;
when the moon rose, I went up the river. I reached the wharf, and
commenced taking out the goods that night, and delivered them all
safely to Mr. Knox next morning. I then took the letter to Mr. Mews,
who read it, and, looking up at me, said, 'Well, you belong to me.' I
thought he was joking, and said, 'How? What way?' He said, 'Don't you
recollect when Trewitt chartered Wilson Sawyer's brig to the West
Indies?' I said, I did. He told me Trewitt then came to him to borrow
$600, which he would not lend, except he had a mortgage on me: Trewitt
was to take it up at a certain time, but never did. I asked him
whether he really took the mortgage on me. He replied that he
certainly thought Trewitt would have taken up the mortgage, but he had
failed, and was not worth a cent, and he, Mews, must have his money. I
asked him whether he had not helped me and my young mistress in the
court house, when master James fooled me before. He said he did help
me all he could, and that he should not have taken a mortgage on me,
but that he thought Trewitt would take it up. Trewitt must have
received some of the last payments from me, after he had given the
mortgage, and knew he should fail; for the mortgage was given two
months before this time.
My head seemed to turn round and round; I was quite out of my senses;
I went away towards the woods; Mr. Mews sent his waiter after me to
persuade me to go back. At first I refused, but afterwards went. He
told me he would give me another chance to buy myself, and I certainly
should have my freedom that time. He said Mr. Enoch Sawyer wanted to
buy me, to be his overseer in the Swamp. I replied I would never try
again to buy myself, and that they had already got $1,200 from me. My
wife[1] (this was my second wife) belonged to Mr. Sawyer; he told me
that her master would not allow me to go to see her, if I would not
consent to what he now proposed; for any colored person going on the
grounds of a white man, after being warned off, is liable to be
flogged, or even shot. I thus found myself forced to go, although no
colored man wishes to live at the house where his wife lives, for he
has to endure the continual misery of seeing her flogged and abused,
without daring to say a word in her defence.
In the service of Mr. Sawyer, I got into a fair way of buying myself
again; for I undertook the lightering of shingles or boards out of the
Dismal Swamp, and hired hands to assist me. But my master had become
security for his two sons-in-law at Norfolk, who failed; in
consequence of which he sold eighteen colored people, his share of the
Swamp, and two plantations. I was one of the slaves he kept, and after
that had to work in the corn-field the same as the rest. The overseer
was a bad one; his name was Brooks. The horn was blown at sunrise; the
colored people had then to march before the overseer to the field, he
on horseback. We had to work, even in long summer days, till twelve
o'clock, before we tasted a morsel, men, women, and children all being
served alike. At noon the cart appeared with our breakfast. It was in
large trays, and was set on the ground. There was bread, of which a
piece was cut off for each person; then there was small hominy boiled,
that is, Indian-corn, ground in the hand-mill, and besides this two
herrings for each of the men and women, and one for each of the
children. Our drink was the water in the ditches, whatever might be
its state; if the ditches were dry, water was brought to us by the
boys. The salt fish made us always thirsty, but no other drink than
water was ever allowed. However thirsty a slave may be, he is not
allowed to leave his employment for a moment to get water; he can only
have it when the hands in working have reached the ditch, at the end
of the rows. The overseer stood with his watch in his hand, to give us
just an hour; when he said, 'Rise,' we had to rise and go to work
again. The women who had children laid them down by the hedge-row, and
gave them straws and other trifles to play with; here they were in
danger from snakes; I have seen a large snake found coiled round the
neck and face of a child, when its mother went to suckle it at
dinner-time. The hands work in a line by the side of each other; the
overseer puts the swiftest hands in the fore row, and all must keep up
with them. One black man is kept on purpose to whip the others in the
field; if he does not flog with sufficient severity, he is flogged
himself; he whips severely, to keep the whip from his own back. If a
man have a wife in the same field with himself, he chooses a row by
the side of hers, that, with extreme labor, he may, if possible, help
her. But he will not be in the same field if he can help it; for, with
his hardest labor, he often cannot save her from being flogged, and he
is obliged to stand by and see it; he is always liable to see her
taken home at night, stripped naked, and whipped before all the men.
On the estate I am speaking of, those women who had sucking children
suffered much from their breasts becoming full of milk, the infants
being left at home; they therefore could not keep up with the other
hands. I have seen the overseer beat them with raw hide, so that blood
and milk flew mingled from their breasts. A woman who gives offence in
the field, and is large in the family way, is compelled to lie down
over a hole made to receive her corpulency, and is flogged with the
whip, or beat with a paddle, which has holes in it; at every hole
comes a blister. One of my sisters was so severely punished in this
way, that labor was brought on, and the child was born in the field.
This very overseer, Mr. Brooks, killed in this manner a girl named
Mary; her father and mother were in the field at the time. He killed,
also, a boy about twelve years old. He had no punishment, or even
trial, for either.