Biography of a Slave, Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson Part 1

Biography of a Slave.

by Charles Thompson.

PREFACE.

In publis.h.i.+ng this book I hope to do good not only to my own race, but to all who may read it. I am not a book-maker, and make no pretensions to literary attainments; and I have made no efforts to create for myself a place in the literary, book-making ranks. I claim for my book truthfulness and honesty of purpose, and upon that basis it must succeed or fail. The Biography of a Slave is called for by a very large number of my immediate acquaintances, and, I am a.s.sured, will meet with such reception as to justify the expense I have incurred in having it printed and bound. To the members of the United Brethren Church, white as well as colored, I look for help in the sale and circulation of my work, yet I am satisfied I will receive commendable patronage from members of all Christian churches everywhere.

The book is written in the narrative style, as being much better suited to the tastes and capacities of my colored readers, and I have used simple and plain English language, discarding the idiomatic and provincial language of the southern slaves and ignorant whites, expecting thereby to help educate the blacks in the use of proper language.

I am indebted to William H. Rhodes, Esq., attorney at law, of Newman, Douglas County, Illinois, for his valuable a.s.sistance in the preparation of my ma.n.u.script for the printer. He has re-written the whole of it for me, and has otherwise a.s.sisted me in the matter of placing the book before the public.

CHARLES THOMPSON.

Newman, Illinois, Aug., 1874.

CHAPTER I.

Charles Thompson, born in Atala County, Mississippi--Division of Kirkwood's Slaves Among his Six Children--The Writer and his Two Sisters Fall to Mrs. Wilson--The Parting Between Mother and Child--Deprived of a Fond Mother Forever--Old Uncle Jack--Wilson Buys Uncle Ben from Strucker--Uncle Ben Runs Away and is Hunted with Blood-Hounds--Two Hundred Dollars Reward.

I was a slave, and was born in Atala County, Mississippi, near the town of Rockford, on the third day of March, 1833. My father and mother both being slaves, of course my pedigree is not traceable, by me, farther back than my parents. Our family belonged to a man named Kirkwood, who was a large slave-owner. Kirkwood died when I was about nine years old, after which, upon the settlement of the affairs of his estate, the slaves belonging to the estate were divided equally, as to value, among the six heirs. There were about seventy-five slaves to be divided into six lots; and great was the tribulation among the poor blacks when they learned that they were to be separated.

When the division was completed two of my sisters and myself were cast into one lot, my mother into another, and my father into another, and the rest of the family in the other lots. Young and slave as I was, I felt the pang of separation from my loved and revered mother; child that I was I mourned for mother, even before our final separation, as one dead to me forever. So early to be deprived of a fond mother, by the "law," gave me my first view of the curse of slavery. Until this time I did not know what trouble was, but from then until the tocsin of freedom was sounded through the glorious Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation by the immortal Abraham Lincoln, I pa.s.sed through hards.h.i.+p after hards.h.i.+p, in quick succession, and many, many times I have almost seen and tasted death.

I bade farewell to my mother, forever, on this earth. Oh! the pangs of that moment. Even after thirty years have elapsed the scene comes vividly to my memory as I write. A gloomy, dark cloud seemed to pa.s.s before my vision, and the very air seemed to still with awfulness. I felt bereaved, forlorn, forsaken, lost. Put yourself in my place; feel what I have felt, and then say, G.o.d is just; he will protect the helpless and right the wronged, and you will have some idea of my feelings and the hope that sustained me through long and weary years of servitude. My mother, my poor mother! what must she have suffered. Never will I forget her last words; never will I forget the earnest prayers of that mother begging for her child, and refusing to be comforted. She had fallen to the lot of Mrs. Anderson, and she pleaded with burning tears streaming down her cheeks, "He is my only son, my baby child, my youngest and the only son I have; please let me have him to go with me!"

Anderson spoke roughly to her and told her to hold her peace; but with her arms around me she clung to me and cried the louder, "Let me have my child; if you will let me have my baby you may have all the rest!"

Mothers can realize this situation only, who have parted with children whom they never expected to see again. Imagine parting with your dearest child, never to see it again; to be thrown into life-servitude in one part of the country and your dear child in the same condition six hundred miles away. Although my mother was black, she had a soul; she had a heart to feel just as you have, and I, her child, was being ruthlessly torn from her by inexorable "law." What would you have done if you had been in her place? _She_ prayed to G.o.d for help.

My kind old father consoled and encouraged my mother all he could, and said to her, "Do not be discouraged, for Jesus is your friend; if you lack for knowledge, he will inform you, and if you meet with troubles and trials on your way, cast all your cares on Jesus, and don't forget to pray." The old man spoke these words while praying, shouting, crying, and saying farewell to my mother. He had, in a manner, raised nearly all the colored people on the plantation; so he had a fatherly feeling for all of them. The old man looked down on me, and said, "My child, you are now without a father and will soon be without a mother; but be a good boy, and G.o.d will be father and mother to you. If you will put your trust in him and pray to him, he will take you home to heaven when you die, where you can meet your mother there, where parting will be no more. Farewell." I was then taken from my mother, and have not seen or heard of her since--about twenty-nine years ago. Old Uncle Jack, as my father was called by the plantation people, spoke words of comfort to all of us before we were parted.

The lot of human chattels, of which I was one, was taken to their new home on Wilson's plantation, in the same county as the Kirkwood plantation. Wilson told my sisters and myself that our mother and ourselves were about six hundred miles apart.

After I had been in my new home about two years, Wilson bought my uncle Ben from a man named Strucker, who lived in the same neighborhood, but he did not buy uncle Ben's wife. Two years later Wilson moved to another plantation he owned in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, about one hundred miles distant from his Atala County plantation. Ben not being willing to go so far from his wife, ran away from his master. Wilson, however, left word that if any one would catch and return Ben to him, he would pay two hundred dollars. This was a bait not to be resisted. The professional slave-hunters, with their blood-hounds, were soon on the track. They failed to get the poor hunted man, though. Ben was a religious, G.o.d-fearing man, and placed firm reliance on the help of the Almighty, in his serious trials, and never failed to find help when most needed.

He stayed under cover in the woods, in such lurking places as the nature of the country provided, in the day time, and at night would cautiously approach his wife's cabin, when, at an appointed signal, she would let him in and give him such food and care as his condition required. The slaves of the South were united in the one particular of helping each other in such cases as this, and would adopt ingenious telegrams and signals to communicate with each other; and it may well be believed that the inventive genius of the blacks was, as a general thing, equal to all emergencies, and when driven to extremities they were brave to a fault.

Ben's wife, in this instance, used the simple device of hanging a certain garment in a particular spot, easily to be seen from Ben's covert, and which denoted that the coast was clear and no danger need be apprehended. The garment and the place of hanging it had to be changed every day, yet the signals thus made were true to the purpose, and saved uncle Ben from capture. Uncle Ben was closely chased by the hounds and inhuman men-hunters; on one occasion so closely that he plunged into a stream and followed the current for more than a mile. Taking to the water threw the hounds off the scent of the track. Before reaching the stream, uncle Ben was so closely pursued that one of the men in the gang shot at him, the bullet pa.s.sing unpleasantly close to him. His wife heard the hounds and the gun-shot. This race for life and liberty was only one of a continued series, and was repeated as often as blood-hounds could find a track to follow. At night Ben was very much fatigued and hungry, and his only hope of getting anything to eat was to reach his wife's cabin. How to do this without being observed, was the question. As well as he was able, about midnight he left his retreat and approached the cabin. It was too dark to see a signal if one had been placed for him in the usual manner. After waiting for some time a bright light shot through the cracks in the cabin for an instant, and was repeated at intervals of two or three minutes, three or four times. This was the night-signal of "all right" agreed upon between uncle Ben and his wife, and was made by placing the usual grease light under a vessel and raising the vessel for a moment at intervals. Ben approached the cabin and gave _his_ signal by rapping on the door three times, and after a short pause three more raps. Thus they had to arrange to meet; the husband to obtain food to sustain life, and the wife to administer to him. On this particular night their meeting was unusually impressive.

She had heard the death-hounds, the sound of the gun-shot, and she knew the yelps of the hounds and the shot were intended for Ben, her husband. With no crime laid to him, he was hunted down as a wild beast.

Made in G.o.d's own image, he is made a slave, a brute, an outcast, and an outlaw because his skin is black. Thus they met, Ben and his wife. After the usual precautions and mutual congratulations they both kneeled before the throne of G.o.d and thanked him for their preservation thus far, and throwing themselves upon his goodness and bounty, asked help in their need and safety in the future. Without rising from his knees, Ben, even in the anguish of his heart, consoled his wife, remarking, "that the darkest hour is always just before daylight."

The blacks of the South have their own peculiar moral maxims, applicable to all situations in life, and the slaves not knowing how to read committed such Bible truths as were read to them from time to time. It is true they were generally superst.i.tious in a great degree, as all ignorant persons are; yet their native sense of right led them to adopt the best and most religious principles, dressed in homely "sayings,"

their circ.u.mstances permitted.

Ben dare not stay very long at a time in his wife's cabin, as a strict watch was constantly kept, that the runaway might be apprehended.

Bidding his wife farewell, Ben hastened back to one of a number of his hiding-places, there to stay through the day, unless routed out by the blood-hounds. He was fortunate, however, in the help of G.o.d, for his safety, and the efforts of the hounds and the hounds' followers were futile.

Finally, Wilson gave up chasing Ben with blood-hounds, and resolved to try a better and more human method. He bought Ben's wife and left her with Strucker, with instructions to send her and Ben to his plantation if Ben was willing for the arrangement. Ben soon got word of how matters stood with reference to himself, and concluded if he could live with his wife on the same plantation that it was the very best he could do, so he acceded to the wishes of Wilson, and was sent with his wife to Wilson.

The happiness of this couple was unbounded when they found they could once more live together as G.o.d intended they should, and the poor wife in her great grat.i.tude cried, "G.o.d is on our side!" Ben replied that he had told her on one occasion that G.o.d was on their side, and that "the darkest hour was just before day."

The usual expression used by the blacks when a runaway returned to his master was that he "had come out of the woods;" that is, he had left his hiding place in the woods and returned to the plantation to work.

When I heard that uncle Ben had come out of the woods, and was coming to live on our plantation, my joy knew no bounds. On the day when he was expected to arrive I got permission to go out on the road some distance and meet them. Early in the morning I caught a horse and started. Every wagon I met filled me with hope and fear blended; hope that the wagon contained my uncle and aunt, and fear that it did not. I rode on, on, on, all that day, until my heart was sick with hope deferred. I had received orders before starting that if I did not meet them that day to return home. But I was so far from home, and with straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of my uncle, added to my keen disappointment in not seeing them, made me feel tired, sick, and worn out. So I stopped at a friendly cabin that night, after telling the inmates who I was and what my errand was. Early the next morning I was out, and the anxiety to see my uncle was so great I thought I would ride out the road a short distance in the hope of meeting him, notwithstanding my orders to return home. After traveling about an hour I met the wagon containing uncle Ben and his wife. The joy of that moment to me is inexpressible. Having been deprived of mother and father he was the only relative my sisters and myself could ever have any hopes of seeing again. My heart rejoiced exceedingly. I was, as it were, a new boy entirely, so overcome was I.

We all arrived home that same day, and it was a much more pleasant trip than I had taken the day before. On that day it was all anxiety, mixed with hope and fear; to-day it was all joy and thanksgiving, again proving uncle Ben's saying that "the darkest hour is always just before day." My sisters were simply wild with joy when we arrived. They ran out the road to meet, us crying, "There comes uncle Ben; we have one more friend!" We were all comforted and rejoiced to a very great extent, and we felt indeed that we had "one more friend" with us. We were as happy as slaves could be, and spent all the time we could together--uncle Ben, his wife, my sisters, and myself.

But Wilson harbored a grudge toward uncle Ben because he had to buy his wife in order to get him, and had said that if he ever got Ben after he ran away he would whip him to death. He treated Ben very well for the time being, but about a year after he had got him home he began to put his plans into operation for severely punis.h.i.+ng him. He was afraid of Ben's prayers. Although Wilson would not have hesitated a moment to have put any plan into execution he may have conceived, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, yet praying Ben, while defending himself by appeals to Almighty G.o.d was stronger than with carnal weapons in his hands. Wilson proceeded cautiously and laid snares for Ben. Uncle Ben was one of the best hands on the plantation, and religiously performed the labor alloted him truly and persistently. He obeyed his overseer and Wilson in all things pertaining to his manual occupation, and obeyed G.o.d to the very best of his ability in this as in everything else. But Wilson wanted to punish Ben, and was determined to do so. He knew that Ben was a faithful slave to labor, and was reliable, yet he wished to break Ben's spirit--his manhood, the G.o.d part of him. Wilson did not seem to know that he was not fighting Ben in his scheme of revenge but that he was fighting G.o.d in Ben, and that although he punished Ben to the death he would be conquered himself, and more severely punished than he could ever hope to punish Ben. But Wilson was mad, infatuated, and satanically determined. Precautious preparations were made by Wilson to insure success in his revengeful scheme, and after having obtained the aid of several neighbors who were what might be called professional slave-whippers, he deemed his undertaking to punish and conquer Ben fully ripe for execution. Ben being a field hand was busily employed picking cotton, with a prayerful heart, and a watchful eye on Wilson.

From Wilson's actions Ben was sure something was going to occur which would nearly concern him, and having been hunted like a beast he had become suspicious and on his guard all the time. Having a feeling of presentiment, he was uneasy, and, as was usual with him, he kneeled down and asked G.o.d to protect him from the machinations of his enemies, and give him heart, courage, and strength to overcome the evil intended him.

While praying he was startled by the snort of a horse, and on looking around to ascertain the cause of the noise he discovered himself almost surrounded by armed men on horseback. No time to think now; the time for action had arrived. Ben knew at once the flight was for life. Better, however, was death than to be thus hunted and hara.s.sed. Bounding through the field he gained a friendly covert, and seemingly by mere chance he eluded his pursuers and the hounds. Ben thanked G.o.d for his deliverance.

Wilson with his heartless band were again baffled, and with man-hunting and disappointments in his man-chase he became furious. Ben stayed in the woods about four weeks, and during all this time my sisters, Ben's wife, and myself were kept in close confinement, to keep us from communicating with Ben or rendering him any a.s.sistance. Thus all of us had to suffer. But we were only slaves.

Wilson finally took Ben's wife to a man in Oxford, about twenty-five miles distant, and came back circulating the word among the blacks that he had sold her. Wilson had made arrangements at Oxford with some professional slave-hunters to catch Ben if he ever came to see his wife, for which purpose she had been taken there.

After a time Ben was informed that he and his wife had been sold by Wilson to a man in Oxford, and of course believing such to be the fact, he went there to see her, and make arrangements for the future. His wife was told by the man with whom Wilson had left her that he had bought both her and Ben, and wished her to get Ben to "come out of the woods."

Laboring under this delusion, Ben was month. The cabin was surrounded by armed men, when Ben was overpowered, chained, and put in jail for safe keeping until Wilson should come after him. Living in the woods so long and the harsh treatment he was now receiving wore Ben down considerably; yet, believing that "the darkest hour is just before day,"

he relied on G.o.d's help in his misery.

Wilson came for Ben in due time, and after chaining him securely around the neck he fastened one end of the chain to the rear of his buggy and literally, a part of the time, dragged him to Holly Springs, about thirty miles from Oxford, where he sold him to a man who had the reputation of being the hardest master in the country. Wilson afterwards took Ben's wife home. Thus they were separated,--Ben and his wife,--never to meet again on this earth.

Wilson told me when he got home that he had sent Ben to h.e.l.l, and that he would send me there too. Infatuated man; he supposed he had done with Ben for the very worst; he thought he had as much power over the souls of his slaves as he had under "the laws" over their bodies. He found, however, in time, that G.o.d was with us, and in his good time he delivered us from our bondage and punished our persecutors as they deserved.

CHAPTER II.

Not sent to h.e.l.l by Wilson--Mrs. Wilson protects me, to whom I belong--Sent to school with the children--The school-children teach me to read and write--What came of it--Mount that mule or I'll shoot you--I mounted the mule--A start for the railroad to work--I dismount and take to the woods--I owe allegiance to G.o.d and my country only.

The monotonous tedium of routine slave-labor was very often broken by some scene of cruelty to one or another of the poor blacks, either by the master or his overseer; and woe unto the luckless one if the master should happen to be in a good mood to break bones. Although slaves were worth money in the South at that time, yet the ungovernable pa.s.sions of some if not most masters found free vent in cruelty to their own property--that is, their slaves. This was the case with Wilson, and no opportunity was missed by him to make a poor black feel the effects of his brutish nature and pa.s.sions. His wife, on the other hand, made every effort to protect the blacks on the plantation as much as possible. When Wilson threatened to send me to h.e.l.l, as he had tried to send uncle Ben, Mrs. Wilson came forward in my behalf and saved me from her husband's unwarranted wrath by telling him that she wished "Charles to accompany her children to school and take such care of them as might be required." It was customary in the South for families who owned slaves to send one or more of them with their children when they attended school as waiters, or personal servants, and as I belonged to Mrs.

Wilson, being an inherited chattel, Wilson acceded to her demand, and I was sent along with the children when they went to school. I was not allowed to sit with the white children in school, but I "loafed around handy," ready for a call from either of my young mistresses.

The "laws," the enlightened laws of the southern states, prohibited, under heavy penalties, the education of a slave, or even a negro, although free; yet some of us, under very disadvantageous circ.u.mstances, learned to read and write.

It has always been a kind of habit with me to "be doing something" all the time, and when not actually employed in some active work I would make use of my time for some good purpose; and while "loafing around"

that school-house it occurred to me as being strange that the white children should be compelled to sit and study hour after hour, while us little darkies "loafed around" and did nothing. Why couldn't we lighten our young masters and mistresses of that labor as well as other kinds of labor? I determined that my young mistresses should not be made slaves of by the school-master, but that I would do that work for them, as they were generally so kind to me. So I proposed the matter to them, and they were tremendously pleased; at least they laughed and chatted a great deal about me getting their lessons for them, which so elated me that I could not avoid turning handsprings and somersaults all the way home that evening, my joy being so great at the idea of doing my mistresses the favor of taking such great labor off their hands as getting their lessons. I did not doubt my ability to perform the work, for I was stout, hearty, and large for my age, and could almost make a full hand in the field. Such was my idea at that time of getting lessons. However, the next day my young mistresses told me the school-master would not allow me to study their lessons for them, but that I might take a book and sit outside of the school-house and study there, but that I must be sure and not let any one see me. Why not? Why should _I_ not study lessons in the school-house for my young mistresses? Because it is against the "law" for slaves to learn to read and write. Well, that is curious. A person, because he is a slave, must not study lessons; must not learn to read and write because it is against the "law." What law?

My mistress used often to read to the children from a book which told about Jesus, and Mary, and Lazarus, and Peter, and Paul; and how Jesus was our Savior, and shed his precious blood for the redemption of all who believed him and would obey his commands; and how Jesus said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Did the "law" prohibit me from studying lessons out of a book about Jesus, and learning to read about Jesus as my mistress did? When my mistress sent my young mistresses to Jesus wouldn't she send me along with them just the same as she sent me to school with them? I reckon so.

Such was my reasoning; and I determined to a.s.sist my young mistresses in getting their lessons, law or no law, let the consequences be what they may.

I received the book and went out from the school-house a short distance, and secured myself from observation in a shady place. I opened the book--a spelling-book it was. Hallo! here's a dog and a cat, and here's a sheep too, and right here in the corner is a yoke--a regular ox-yoke.

Well, now, this _is_ nice. So I got my first idea of what a book contained by the pictures in a spelling-book. The print in the book meant something, I was sure, and my mind was employed until recess in endeavors to make out what the print and pictures were intended for. The scholars came out at recess, and my mistresses gave me such instructions as they were able, which gave me a start ahead that enabled me to memorize the first six letters of the alphabet by the time school dismissed for noon.

I began to be deeply interested in "studying lessons," and was soon, after hard study, complete master of the alphabet. I could repeat it forwards and backwards, and could instantly tell the name of any letter pointed out to me. My mistresses seemed to take great pleasure in teaching me, and I was very anxious to learn. I soon found that I could understand in a great measure the instructions the teacher gave to the different scholars, by which I profited. I sat in the back part of the house, behind the scholars, with my young mistress' old book in my hand, and held it so that n.o.body could see it, and studied constantly day after day, which soon advanced me beyond some of the white children older than myself in learning. I learned to spell and read; and my appet.i.te for knowledge increasing, my young mistress set copies for me, and by the time the school-term was out I could spell, read, and write.

Slaves on large plantations in the South were worked in gangs, under the general supervision of the overseer or slave-owner. The gangs were placed under the immediate supervision of a trusty and intelligent slave, whose duty it was to see that each hand performed his or her allotted task, to weigh cotton during the picking season, and to direct the slaves in their labor, and were called field superintendents or bosses. This was my position on the plantation a short time after school was out for the term.