The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave by William Wells Brown
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William Wells Brown >> The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave
NARRATIVE
OF
WILLIAM W. BROWN,
A
FUGITIVE SLAVE.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
--Is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who gains his fortune from the blood of souls?
COWPER.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED AT THE ANTI-SLAVERY OFFICE,
NO. 25 CORNHILL.
1847.
[Illustration: William W. Brown.]
TO WELLS BROWN, OF OHIO.
Thirteen years ago, I came to your door, a weary fugitive from chains
and stripes. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was hungry, and you
fed me. Naked was I, and you clothed me. Even a name by which to be
known among men, slavery had denied me. You bestowed upon me your own.
Base indeed should I be, if I ever forget what I owe to you, or do
anything to disgrace that honored name!
As a slight testimony of my gratitude to my earliest benefactor, I take
the liberty to inscribe to you this little Narrative of the sufferings
from which I was fleeing when you had compassion upon me. In the
multitude that you have succored, it is very possible that you may not
remember me; but until I forget God and myself, I can never forget you.
Your grateful friend,
WILLIAM WELLS BROWN.
LETTER FROM
EDMUND QUINCY, ESQ.
DEDHAM, JULY 1, 1847.
TO WILLIAM W. BROWN.
MY DEAR FRIEND:--I heartily thank you for the privilege of reading the
manuscript of your Narrative. I have read it with deep interest and
strong emotion. I am much mistaken if it be not greatly successful and
eminently useful. It presents a different phase of the infernal
slave-system from that portrayed in the admirable story of Mr. Douglass,
and gives us a glimpse of its hideous cruelties in other portions of its
domain.
Your opportunities of observing the workings of this accursed system
have been singularly great. Your experiences in the Field, in the House,
and especially on the River in the service of the slave-trader, Walker,
have been such as few individuals have had;--no one, certainly, who has
been competent to describe them. What I have admired, and marvelled at,
in your Narrative, is the simplicity and calmness with which you
describe scenes and actions which might well "move the very stones to
rise and mutiny" against the National Institution which makes them
possible.
You will perceive that I have made very sparing use of your flattering
permission to alter what you had written. To correct a few errors, which
appeared to be merely clerical ones, committed in the hurry of
composition, under unfavorable circumstances, and to suggest a few
curtailments, is all that I have ventured to do. I should be a bold man,
as well as a vain one, if I should attempt to improve your descriptions
of what you have seen and suffered. Some of the scenes are not unworthy
of De Foe himself.
I trust and believe that your Narrative will have a wide circulation. I
am sure it deserves it. At least, a man must be differently constituted
from me, who can rise from the perusal of your Narrative without feeling
that he understands slavery better, and hates it worse, than he ever did
before.
I am, very faithfully and respectfully,
Your friend,
EDMUND QUINCY.
PREFACE.
The friends of freedom may well congratulate each other on the
appearance of the following Narrative. It adds another volume to the
rapidly increasing anti-slavery literature of the age. It has been
remarked by a close observer of human nature, "Let me make the songs of
a nation, and I care not who makes its laws;" and it may with equal
truth be said, that, among a reading people like our own, their books
will at least give character to their laws. It is an influence which
goes forth noiselessly upon its mission, but fails not to find its way
to many a warm heart, to kindle on the altar thereof the fires of
freedom, which will one day break forth in a living flame to consume
oppression.
This little book is a voice from the prison-house, unfolding the deeds
of darkness which are there perpetrated. Our cause has received
efficient aid from this source. The names of those who have come from
thence, and battled manfully for the right, need not to be recorded
here. The works of some of them are an enduring monument of praise, and
their perpetual record shall be found in the grateful hearts of the
redeemed bondman.
Few persons have had greater facilities for becoming acquainted with
slavery, in all its horrible aspects, than William W. Brown. He
has been behind the curtain. He has visited its secret chambers. Its
iron has entered his own soul. The dearest ties of nature have been
riven in his own person. A mother has been cruelly scourged before his
own eyes. A father,--alas! slaves have no father. A brother has been
made the subject of its tender mercies. A sister has been given up to
the irresponsible control of the pale-faced oppressor. This nation looks
on approvingly. The American Union sanctions the deed. The Constitution
shields the criminals. American religion sanctifies the crime. But the
tide is turning. Already, a mighty under-current is sweeping onward. The
voice of warning, of remonstrance, of rebuke, of entreaty, has gone
forth. Hand is linked in hand, and heart mingles with heart, in this
great work of the slave's deliverance.
The convulsive throes of the monster, even now, give evidence of deep
wounds.
The writer of this Narrative was hired by his master to a
"_soul-driver_," and has witnessed all the horrors of the traffic, from
the buying up of human cattle in the slave-breeding States, which
produced a constant scene of separating the victims from all those whom
they loved, to their final sale in the southern market, to be worked up
in seven years, or given over to minister to the lust of southern
_Christians_.
Many harrowing scenes are graphically portrayed; and yet with that
simplicity and ingenuousness which carries with it a conviction of the
truthfulness of the picture.
This book will do much to unmask those who have "clothed themselves in
the livery of the court of heaven" to cover up the enormity of their
deeds.
During the past three years, the author has devoted his entire energies
to the anti-slavery cause. Laboring under all the disabilities and
disadvantages growing out of his education in slavery--subjected, as he
had been from his birth, to all the wrongs and deprivations incident to
his condition--he yet went forth, impelled to the work by a love of
liberty--stimulated by the remembrance of his own sufferings--urged on
by the consideration that a mother, brothers, and sister, were still
grinding in the prison-house of bondage, in common with three millions
of our Father's children--sustained by an unfaltering faith in the
omnipotence of truth and the final triumph of justice--to plead the
cause of the slave, and by the eloquence of earnestness carried
conviction to many minds, and enlisted the sympathy and secured the
co-operation of many to the cause.
His labors have been chiefly confined to Western New York, where he has
secured many warm friends, by his untiring zeal, persevering energy,
continued fidelity, and universal kindness.
Reader, are you an Abolitionist? What have you done for the slave? What
are you doing in his behalf? What do you purpose to do? There is a great
work before us! Who will be an idler now? This is the great humanitary
movement of the age, swallowing up, for the time being, all other
questions, comparatively speaking. The course of human events, in
obedience to the unchangeable laws of our being, is fast hastening the
final crisis, and
"Have ye chosen, O my people, on whose party ye shall stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandal shakes the dust against our land?"
Are you a Christian? This is the carrying out of practical Christianity;
and there is no other. Christianity is _practical_ in its very nature
and essence. It is a life, springing out of a soul imbued with its
spirit. Are you a friend of the missionary cause? This is the greatest
missionary enterprize of the day. Three millions of _Christian_,
law-manufactured heathen are longing for the glad tidings of the Gospel
of freedom. Are you a friend of the Bible? Come, then, and help us to
restore to these millions, whose eyes have been bored out by slavery,
their sight, that they may see to read the Bible. Do you love God whom
you have not seen? Then manifest that love, by restoring to your brother
whom you have seen, his rightful inheritance, of which he has been so
long and so cruelly deprived.
It is not for a single generation alone, numbering three
millions--sublime as would be that effort--that we are working. It is
for humanity, the wide world over, not only now, but for all
coming time, and all future generations:--
"For he who settles Freedom's principles,
Writes the death-warrant of all tyranny."
It is a vast work--a glorious enterprize--worthy the unswerving devotion
of the entire life-time of the great and the good.
Slaveholding and slaveholders must be rendered disreputable and odious.
They must be stripped of their respectability and Christian reputation.
They must be treated as "men-stealers--guilty of the highest
kind of theft, and sinners of the first rank." Their more guilty
accomplices in the persons of _northern apologists_, both in Church and
State, must be placed in the same category. Honest men must be made to
look upon their crimes with the same abhorrence and loathing, with
which they regard the less guilty robber and assassin, until
"The common damned shun their society,
And look upon themselves as fiends less foul."
When a just estimate is placed upon the crime of slave-holding, the work
will have been accomplished, and the glorious day ushered in--
"When man nor woman in all our wide domain,
Shall buy, or sell, or hold, or be a slave."
J.C. Hathaway.
--Farmington, N.Y., 1847.
NARRATIVE.
CHAPTER I.
I was born in Lexington, Ky. The man who stole me as soon as I was born,
recorded the births of all the infants which he claimed to be born his
property, in a book which he kept for that purpose. My mother's name was
Elizabeth. She had seven children, viz: Solomon, Leander, Benjamin,
Joseph, Millford, Elizabeth, and myself. No two of us were children of
the same father. My father's name, as I learned from my mother, was
George Higgins. He was a white man, a relative of my master, and
connected with some of the first families in Kentucky.
My master owned about forty slaves, twenty-five of whom were field
hands. He removed from Kentucky to Missouri, when I was quite young, and
settled thirty or forty miles above St. Charles, on the Missouri, where,
in addition to his practice as a physician, he carried on milling,
merchandizing and farming. He had a large farm, the principal
productions of which were tobacco and hemp. The slave cabins were
situated on the back part of the farm, with the house of the overseer,
whose name was Grove Cook, in their midst. He had the entire charge of
the farm, and having no family, was allowed a woman to keep house for
him, whose business it was to deal out the provisions for the hands.
A woman was also kept at the quarters to do the cooking for the field
hands, who were summoned to their unrequited toil every morning at four
o'clock, by the ringing of a bell, hung on a post near the house of the
overseer. They were allowed half an hour to eat their breakfast, and get
to the field. At half past four, a horn was blown by the overseer, which
was the signal to commence work; and every one that was not on the spot
at the time, had to receive ten lashes from the negro-whip, with which
the overseer always went armed. The handle was about three feet long,
with the butt-end filled with lead, and the lash six or seven feet in
length, made of cowhide, with platted wire on the end of it. This whip
was put in requisition very frequently and freely, and a small offence
on the part of a slave furnished an occasion for its use. During the
time that Mr. Cook was overseer, I was a house servant--a situation
preferable to that of a field hand, as I was better fed, better clothed,
and not obliged to rise at the ringing of the bell, but about half an
hour after. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the
screams of the slave. My mother was a field hand, and one morning was
ten or fifteen minutes behind the others in getting into the field. As
soon as she reached the spot where they were at work, the overseer
commenced whipping her. She cried, "Oh! pray--Oh! pray--Oh! pray"--these
are generally the words of slaves, when imploring mercy at the hands of
their oppressors. I heard her voice, and knew it, and jumped out of my
bunk, and went to the door. Though the field was some distance from the
house, I could hear every crack of the whip, and every groan and cry of
my poor mother. I remained at the door, not daring to venture any
farther. The cold chills ran over me, and I wept aloud. After giving her
ten lashes, the sound of the whip ceased, and I returned to my bed, and
found no consolation but in my tears. It was not yet daylight.
CHAPTER II.
My master being a political demagogue, soon found those who
were ready to put him into office, for the favors he could render them;
and a few years after his arrival in Missouri, he was elected to a seat
in the Legislature. In his absence from home, everything was left in
charge of Mr. Cook, the overseer, and he soon became more tyrannical and
cruel. Among the slaves on the plantation, was one by the name of
Randall. He was a man about six feet high, and well-proportioned, and
known as a man of great strength and power. He was considered the most
valuable and able-bodied slave on the plantation; but no matter how good
or useful a slave may be, he seldom escapes the lash. But it was not so
with Randall. He had been on the plantation since my earliest
recollection, and I had never known of his being flogged. No thanks
were due to the master or overseer for this. I have often heard him
declare, that no white man should ever whip him--that he would die
first.
Cook, from the time that he came upon the plantation, had frequently
declared, that he could and would flog any nigger that was put into the
field to work under him. My master had repeatedly told him not to
attempt to whip Randall, but he was determined to try it. As soon as he
was left sole dictator, he thought the time had come to put his threats
into execution. He soon began to find fault with Randall, and threatened
to whip him, if he did not do better. One day he gave him a very hard
task,--more than he could possibly do; and at night, the task not being
performed, he told Randall that he should remember him the next morning.
On the following morning, after the hands had taken breakfast, Cook
called out to Randall, and told him that he intended to whip him, and
ordered him to cross his hands and be tied. Randall asked why he wished
to whip him. He answered, because he had not finished his task the day
before. Randall said that the task was too great, or he should have done
it. Cook said it made no difference,--he should whip him. Randall stood
silent for a moment, and then said, "Mr. Cook, I have always tried to
please you since you have been on the plantation, and I find you are
determined not to be satisfied with my work, let me do as well as I may.
No man has laid hands on me, to whip me, for the last ten years, and I
have long since come to the conclusion not to be whipped by any man
living." Cook, finding by Randall's determined look and gestures, that
he would resist, called three of the hands from their work, and
commanded them to seize Randall, and tie him. The hands stood
still;--they knew Randall--and they also knew him to be a powerful man,
and were afraid to grapple with him. As soon as Cook had ordered the men
to seize him, Randall turned to them, and said--"Boys, you all know me;
you know that I can handle any three of you, and the man that lays hands
on me shall die. This white man can't whip me himself, and therefore he
has called you to help him." The overseer was unable to prevail upon
them to seize and secure Randall, and finally ordered them all to go to
their work together.
Nothing was said to Randall by the overseer, for more than a week. One
morning, however, while the hands were at work in the field, he came
into it, accompanied by three friends of his, Thompson, Woodbridge and
Jones. They came up to where Randall was at work, and Cook ordered him
to leave his work, and go with them to the barn. He refused to go;
whereupon he was attacked by the overseer and his companions, when he
turned upon them, and laid them, one after another, prostrate on the
ground. Woodbridge drew out his pistol, and fired at him, and brought
him to the ground by a pistol ball. The others rushed upon him with
their clubs, and beat him over the head and face, until they succeeded
in tying him. He was then taken to the barn, and tied to a beam. Cook
gave him over one hundred lashes with a heavy cowhide, had him washed
with salt and water, and left him tied during the day. The next day he
was untied, and taken to a blacksmith's shop, and had a ball and chain
attached to his leg. He was compelled to labor in the field, and perform
the same amount of work that the other hands did. When his master
returned home, he was much pleased to find that Randall had been subdued
in his absence.
CHAPTER III.
Soon afterwards, my master removed to the city of St. Louis,
and purchased a farm four miles from there, which he placed under the
charge of an overseer by the name of Friend Haskell. He was a regular
Yankee from New England. The Yankees are noted for making the most cruel
overseers.
My mother was hired out in the city, and I was also hired out there to
Major Freeland, who kept a public house. He was formerly from Virginia,
and was a horse-racer, cock-fighter, gambler, and withal an inveterate
drunkard. There were ten or twelve servants in the house, and when he
was present, it was cut and slash--knock down and drag out. In his fits
of anger, he would take up a chair, and throw it at a servant; and in
his more rational moments, when he wished to chastise one, he would tie
them up in the smoke-house, and whip them; after which, he would cause
a fire to be made of tobacco stems, and smoke them. This he called
"_Virginia play_."
I complained to my master of the treatment which I received from Major
Freeland; but it made no difference. He cared nothing about it, so long
as he received the money for my labor. After living with Major Freeland
five or six months, I ran away, and went into the woods back of the
city; and when night came on, I made my way to my master's farm, but was
afraid to be seen, knowing that if Mr. Haskell, the overseer, should
discover me, I should be again carried back to Major Freeland; so I kept
in the woods. One day, while in the woods, I heard the barking and
howling of dogs, and in a short time they came so near, that I knew them
to be the blood-hounds of Major Benjamin O'Fallon. He kept five or six,
to hunt runaway slaves with.
As soon as I was convinced that it was them, I knew there was no chance
of escape. I took refuge in the top of a tree, and the hounds were soon
at its base, and there remained until the hunters came up in a half or
three quarters of an hour afterwards. There were two men with the dogs,
who, as soon as they came up, ordered me to descend. I came down, was
tied, and taken to St. Louis jail. Major Freeland soon made his
appearance, and took me out, and ordered me to follow him, which I did.
After we returned home, I was tied up in the smoke-house, and was very
severely whipped. After the Major had flogged me to his satisfaction, he
sent out his son Robert, a young man eighteen or twenty years of age, to
see that I was well smoked. He made a fire of tobacco stems, which soon
set me to coughing and sneezing. This, Robert told me, was the way his
father used to do to his slaves in Virginia. After giving me what they
conceived to be a decent smoking, I was untied and again set to work.
Robert Freeland was a "chip of the old block." Though quite young, it
was not unfrequently that he came home in a state of intoxication. He is
now, I believe, a popular commander of a steamboat on the Mississippi
river. Major Freeland soon after failed in business, and I was put on
board the steamboat Missouri, which plied between St. Louis and Galena.
The commander of the boat was William B. Culver. I remained on her
during the sailing season, which was the most pleasant time for me that
I had ever experienced. At the close of navigation, I was hired to Mr.
John Colburn, keeper of the Missouri Hotel. He was from one of the Free
States; but a more inveterate hater of the negro, I do not believe ever
walked on God's green earth. This hotel was at that time one of the
largest in the city, and there were employed in it twenty or thirty
servants, mostly slaves.
Mr. Colburn was very abusive, not only to the servants, but to his wife
also, who was an excellent woman, and one from whom I never knew a
servant to receive a harsh word; but never did I know a kind one to a
servant from her husband. Among the slaves employed in the hotel, was
one by the name of Aaron, who belonged to Mr. John F. Darby, a lawyer.
Aaron was the knife-cleaner. One day, one of the knives was put on the
table, not as clean as it might have been. Mr. Colburn, for this
offence, tied Aaron up in the wood-house, and gave him over fifty lashes
on the bare back with a cowhide, after which, he made me wash him down
with rum. This seemed to put him into more agony than the whipping.
After being untied, he went home to his master, and complained of the
treatment which he had received. Mr. Darby would give no heed to
anything he had to say, but sent him directly back. Colburn, learning
that he had been to his master with complaints, tied him up again, and
gave him a more severe whipping than before. The poor fellow's back was
literally cut to pieces; so much so, that he was not able to work for
ten or twelve days.
There was also, among the servants, a girl whose master resided in the
country. Her name was Patsey. Mr. Colburn tied her up one evening, and
whipped her until several of the boarders came out and begged him to
desist. The reason for whipping her was this. She was engaged to be
married to a man belonging to Major William Christy, who resided four or
five miles north of the city. Mr. Colburn had forbid her to see John
Christy. The reason of this was said to be the regard which he himself
had for Patsey. She went to meeting that evening, and John returned home
with her. Mr. Colburn had intended to flog John, if he came within the
inclosure; but John knew too well the temper of his rival, and kept at a
safe distance;--so he took vengeance on the poor girl. If all the
slave-drivers had been called together, I do not think a more cruel man
than John Colburn,--and he too a northern man,--could have been found
among them.
While living at the Missouri Hotel, a circumstance occurred which caused
me great unhappiness. My master sold my mother, and all her children,
except myself. They were sold to different persons in the city of St.
Louis.
CHAPTER IV.
I was soon after taken from Mr. Colburn's, and hired to Elijah
P. Lovejoy, who was at that time publisher and editor of the "St. Louis
Times." My work, while with him, was mainly in the printing office,
waiting on the hands, working the press, &c. Mr. Lovejoy was a very good
man, and decidedly the best master that I had ever had. I am chiefly
indebted to him, and to my employment in the printing office, for what
little learning I obtained while in slavery.
Though slavery is thought, by some, to be mild in Missouri, when
compared with the cotton, sugar and rice growing States, yet no part of
our slave-holding country, is more noted for the barbarity of its
inhabitants, than St. Louis. It was here that Col. Harney, a United
States officer, whipped a slave woman to death. It was here that Francis
McIntosh, a free colored man from Pittsburgh, was taken from the
steamboat Flora, and burned at the stake. During a residence of eight
years in this city, numerous cases of extreme cruelty came under my own
observation;--to record them all, would occupy more space than could
possibly be allowed in this little volume. I shall, therefore, give but
a few more, in addition to what I have already related.
Capt. J.B. Brunt, who resided near my master, had a slave named John. He
was his body servant, carriage driver, &c. On one occasion, while
driving his master through the city,--the streets being very muddy, and
the horses going at a rapid rate,--some mud spattered upon a gentleman
by the name of Robert More. More was determined to be revenged. Some
three or four months after this occurrence, he purchased John, for the
express purpose, as he said, "to tame the d----d nigger." After the
purchase, he took him to a blacksmith's shop, and had a ball and chain
fastened to his leg, and then put him to driving a yoke of oxen, and
kept him at hard labor, until the iron around his leg was so worn into
the flesh, that it was thought mortification would ensue. In addition to
this, John told me that his master whipped him regularly three times a
week for the first two months:--and all this to "_tame him_." A more
noble looking man than he, was not to be found in all St. Louis, before
he fell into the hands of More; and a more degraded and spirit-crushed
looking being was never seen on a southern plantation, after he had been
subjected to this "_taming_" process for three months. The last time
that I saw him, he had nearly lost the entire use of his limbs.