A Child\'s Anti Slavery Book - Various
[Illustration: A SLAVE FATHER SOLD AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY.]
THE CHILD'S ANTI-SLAVERY BOOK
CONTAINING A
Few Words about American Slave Children.
AND
STORIES OF SLAVE-LIFE.
TEN ILLUSTRATIONS.
CONTENTS.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT AMERICAN SLAVE CHILDREN
LITTLE LEWIS--THE STORY OF A SLAVE BOY
MARK AND HASTY
AUNT JUDY'S STORY--A STORY FROM REAL LIFE
ME NEBER GIVE IT UP
Illustrations.
A SLAVE FATHER SOLD AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY.
LITTLE LEWIS SOLD.
WHIPPING A SLAVE.
HUNTING RUNAWAY SLAVES.
HASTY'S GRIEF.
AUNT JUDY'S HUSBAND CAPTURED.
HANDCUFFING JUDY'S HUSBAND.
WAITING TO BE SOLD.
AUNT JUDY.
"ME NEBER GIB IT UP!"
A FEW WORDS ABOUT AMERICAN SLAVE CHILDREN.
Children, you are free and happy. Kind parents watch over you with
loving eyes; patient teachers instruct you from the beautiful pages of
the printed book; benign laws, protect you from violence, and prevent
the strong arms of wicked people from hurting you; the blessed Bible is
in your hands; when you become men and women you will have full liberty
to earn your living, to go, to come, to seek pleasure or profit in any
way that you may choose, so long as you do not meddle with the rights of
other people; in one word, _you are free children_! Thank God! thank
God! my children, for this precious gift. Count it dearer than life. Ask
the great God who made you free to teach you to prefer death to the loss
of liberty.
But are all the children in America free like you? No, no! I am sorry to
tell you that hundreds of thousands of American children are _slaves_.
Though born beneath the same sun and on the same soil, with the same
natural right to freedom as yourselves, they are nevertheless SLAVES.
Alas for them! Their parents cannot train them as they will, for they
too have MASTERS. These masters say to them:
"Your children are OURS--OUR PROPERTY! They shall not be taught to read
or write; they shall never go to school; they shall not be taught to
read the Bible; they must submit to us and not to you; we shall whip
them, sell them, and do what else we please with them. They shall never
own themselves, never have the right to dispose of themselves, but shall
obey us in all things as long as they live!"
"Why do their fathers let these masters have their children? My father
wouldn't let anybody have me," I hear one of my little free-spirited
readers ask.
Simply, my noble boy, because they can't help it. The masters have
banded themselves together, and have made a set of wicked laws by which
nearly four millions of men, women, and children are declared to be
their personal chattels, or property. So that if one of these slave
fathers should refuse to let his child be used as the property of his
master, those wicked laws would help the master by inflicting cruel
punishments on the parent. Hence the poor slave fathers and mothers are
forced to silently witness the cruel wrongs which their helpless
children are made to suffer. Violence has been framed into a law, and
the poor slave is trodden beneath the feet of the powerful.
"But why did those slaves let their masters bring them into this state?
Why didn't they fight as our forefathers did when they threw off the
yoke of England's laws?" inquires a bright-eyed lad who has just risen
from the reading of a history of our Revolution.
The slaves were not reduced to their present servile condition in large
bodies. When our ancestors settled this country they felt the need of
more laborers than they could hire. Then wicked men sailed from England
and other parts of Europe to the coast of Africa. Sending their boats
ashore filled with armed men, they fell upon the villages of the poor
Africans, set fire to their huts, and, while they were filled with
fright, seized, handcuffed, and dragged them to their boats, and then
carried them aboard ship.
This piracy was repeated until the ship was crowded with negro men,
women, and children. The poor things were packed like spoons below the
deck. Then the ship set sail for the coast of America. I cannot tell you
how horribly the poor negroes suffered. Bad air, poor food, close
confinement, and cruel treatment killed them off by scores. When they
died their bodies were pitched into the sea, without pity or remorse.
After a wearisome voyage the survivors, on being carried into some port,
were sold to the highest bidder. No regard was paid to their
relationship. One man bought a husband, another a wife. The child was
taken to one place, the mother to another. Thus they were scattered
abroad over the colonies. Fresh loads arrived continually, and thus
their numbers increased. Others were born on the soil, until now, after
the lapse of some two centuries, there are nearly four millions of negro
slaves in the country, besides large numbers of colored people who in
various ways have been made free.
You can now see how easy it was for the masters to make the wicked laws
by which the slaves are now held in bondage. They began when the slaves
were few in number, when they spoke a foreign language, and when they
were too few and feeble to offer any resistance to their oppressors, as
their masters did to old England when she tried to oppress them.
I want you to remember one great truth regarding slavery, namely, that a
slave is a human being, held and used as property by another human
being, and that _it is always_ A SIN AGAINST GOD _to thus hold and me a
human being as property_!
You know it is not a sin to use an ox, a horse, a dog, a squirrel, a
house, or an acre of land as property, if it be honestly obtained,
because God made these and similar objects to be possessed as property
by men. But God did not make _man to be the property of man_. He never
gave any man the right to own his neighbor or his neighbor's child.
On the contrary, he made all men to be free and equal, as saith our
Declaration of Independence. Hence, every negro child that is born is as
free before God as the white child, having precisely the same right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the white child. The law
which denies him that right does not destroy it. It may enable the man
who claims him as a slave to deprive him of its exercise, but the right
itself remains, for the wicked law under which he acts does not and
cannot set aside the divine law, by which he is as free as any child
that was ever born.
But if God made every man, woman, and child to be free, and not
property, then he who uses a human being as property acts contrary to
the will of God and SINS! Is it not so, my children?
Yet that is what every slaveholder does. _He uses his slaves as
property_. He reckons them as worth so many dollars, just as your father
sets a certain money value on his horse, farm, or merchandise. He sells
him, gives him away, uses his labor without paying him wages, claims his
children as so many more dollars added to his estate, and when he dies
wills him to his heirs forever. And this is SIN, my children--a very
great sin against God, a high crime against human nature.
Mark what I say! the sin of slavery does not lie merely in whipping,
starving, or otherwise ill-treating a human being, but in using him as
property; in saying of him as you do of your dog: "He is my property. He
is worth so much money to me. I will do what I please with him. I will
keep him, use him, sell him, give him away, and keep all he earns, just
as I choose."
To say that of a man is sin. You might clothe the man in purple, feed
him on manna from heaven, and keep him in a palace of ivory, still, if
you used him as your property, you would commit sin!
Children, I want you to shrink from this sin as the Jews did from the
fiery serpents. Hate it. Loathe it as you would the leprosy. Make a
solemn vow before the Saviour, who loves the slave and slave children as
truly as he does you, that you will never hold slaves, never apologize
for those who do. As little Hannibal vowed eternal hatred to Rome at the
altar of a false god, so do you vow eternal enmity to slavery at the
altar of the true and living Jehovah. Let your purpose be, "I will
rather beg my bread than live by the unpaid toil of a slave."
To assist you in carrying out that purpose, and to excite your sympathy
for poor slave children, the following stories were written. The
characters in them are all real, though their true names are not always
given. The stories are therefore pictures of actual life, and are worthy
of your belief.
D.W.
* * * * *
[Illustration: LITTLE LEWIS SOLD.]
LITTLE LEWIS:
The Story of a Slave Boy.
BY JULIA COLMAN.
"A, B, C," said little Lewis to himself, as he bent eagerly over a
ragged primer. "Here's anoder A, an' there's anoder, an' there's anoder
C, but I can't find anoder B. Missy Katy said I must find just so many
as I can. Dear little Missy Katy! an' wont I be just so good as ever I
can, an' learn to read, an' when I get to be a man I'll call myself
white folks; for I'm a most as white as Massa Harry is now, when he runs
out widout his hat; A, B, C." And so the little fellow ran on, thinking
what a fine man he would be when he had learned to read.
Just then he heard a shrill laugh in the distance, and the cry, "Lew!
Lew! where's Lew?"
It was Katy's voice, and tucking his book in his bosom, he ran around
the house toward her with light feet; for though she was often cross and
willful, as only daughters sometimes are, she was the only one of the
family that showed him even an occasional kindness. She was, withal,
a frolicsome, romping witch, and as he turned the corner, she came
scampering along right toward him with three or four white children at
her heels, and all the little woolly heads of the establishment,
numbering something less than a score.
"Here, Lew!" she said, as she came in sight, "you take the tag and run."
With a quick movement he touched her outstretched hand, and he would
have made the others some trouble to catch him, for he was the smartest
runner among the children; but as he turned he tripped on a stone, and
lay sprawling. "Tag," cried Hal, Katy's cousin, as he placed his feet on
the little fellow's back and jumped over him. It was cruel, but what did
Hal care for the "little nigger." If he had been at home he would have
had some little fear of breaking the child's back, for his father was
more careful of his _property_ than Uncle Stamford was.
Before Lewis could rise, two or three of the negro boys, who were always
too ready to imitate the vices of their masters, had made the boy a
stepping stone, and then Dick, his master's eldest son, came down upon
him with both knees, and began to cuff him roundly.
"So, you black scamp, you thought you'd run away with the tag, did you!"
Just then he perceived the primer that was peeping out of Lewis's shirt
bosom. "Ha! what's here?" said he; "a primer, as I live! And what are
you doing with this, I'd like to know?"
"Missy Katy give it to me, and she is teaching me my letters out of it.
Please, massa, let me have it again," said he, beseechingly, as Dick
made a motion as if to throw it away. "I would like to learn how
to read."
"You would, would you!" said Dick. "You'd like to read to Tom and Sam,
down on a Louisiana plantation, in sugar time, when you'd nothing else
to do, I suppose. Ha, ha, ha!" and the young tyrant, giving the boy a
vigorous kick or two as he rose, stuffed the book into his own pocket,
and walked off.
Poor Lewis! He very well knew the meaning of that taunt, and he did not
open his mouth. No threat of a dark closet ever frightened a free child
so much as the threat of being sold to a Southern plantation terrifies
the slave-child of Kentucky.
Lewis walked slowly toward the kitchen, to see Aunt Sally. It was to her
he used to go with all his troubles, and sometimes she scolded, and
sometimes she listened. She was very busy dressing the vegetables for
dinner, and she looked cross; so the little fellow crept into the
chimney corner and said nothing; but he thought all the more, and as he
thought, the sad tears rolled down his tawny cheeks.
"What is the matter now, little baby?" was Aunt Sally's tender inquiry.
Lewis commenced his pitiful tale; but as soon as Aunt Sally heard that
it was about learning to read, she shut him up with "Good enough for
you! What do you want of a book? Readin' isn't for the likes of you; and
the less you know of it the better."
This was poor sympathy, and the little fellow, with a half-spiteful
feeling, scrambled upon a bench near by, and tumbled out of the window.
He alighted on an ash-heap, not a very nice place to be sure, but it was
a retired corner, and he often hid away there when he felt sad and
wanted to be alone. Here he sat down, and leaning his head against the
side of the house, he groaned out, "My mother, O my mother! If you ain't
dead, why don't you come to me?"
By degrees he calmed down, and half asleep there in the sunshine, he
dreamed of the home that he once had. His mother was a noble woman, so
he thought. Nobody else ever looked so kindly into his face; he was sure
nobody else ever loved him as she did, and he remembered when she was
gay and cheerful, and would go all day singing about her work. And his
father, he could just remember him as a very pleasant man that he used
to run to meet, sometimes, when he saw him coming home away down the
road; but that was long ago. He had not seen him now for years, and he
had heard his mother say that his father's master had moved away out of
the state and taken him with him, and maybe he would never return. Then
Lewis's mother grew sad, and stopped her singing, though she worked as
hard as ever, and kept her children all neat and clean.
And those dear brothers and sisters, what had become of them? There was
Tom, the eldest, the very best fellow in the world, so Lewis thought. He
would sit by the half hour making tops, and whistles, and all sorts of
pretty playthings. And Sam, too! he was always so full of fun and
singing songs. What a singer he was! and it was right cheerful when Sam
would borrow some neighbor's banjo and play to them. But they were all
gone; and his sad, sweet-faced, lady-like sister Nelly, too, they were
all taken off in one day by one of the ugliest negro-drivers that ever
scared a little slave-boy's dreams. And it was while his mother was away
from home too. How she did cry and take on when she came back and found
them all gone, and she hadn't even the chance to bid them good-by! She
said she knew her master sent her off that morning because he was going
to sell her children.
Lewis shuddered as he thought of that dreadful night. It was hardly two
years ago, and the fearful things he heard then burned into his soul
with terrible distinctness. It seemed as if their little cabin was
deserted after that, for Tom, and Sam, and Nelly were almost grown up,
and the rest were all little ones. The next winter his other sister,
Fanny, died; but that wasn't half so sad. She was about twelve years
old, and a blithesome, cheerful creature, just as her mother had been.
He remembered how his master came to their cabin to comfort them, as he
said; but his mother told him plainly that she did not want any such
comfort. She wished Nelly was dead too. She wished she had never had any
children to grow up and suffer what she had. It was in vain her master
tried to soothe her. He talked like a minister, as he was; but she had
grown almost raving, and she talked to him as she never dared to do
before. She wanted to know why he didn't come to console her when she
lost her other children; "three all at once" she said, "and they're ten
times worse than dead. You never consoled me then at all. Religion?
Pooh! I don't want none of _your_ religion."
And now she, too, was gone. She had been gone more than a year. It was
said that she was hired out to work in another family; but it wasn't so.
They only told her that story to get her away from the children
peaceably. She was sold quite a distance away to a very bad man, who
used her cruelly.
Ned, who was some two years younger than Lewis, and the only brother he
had left, was a wild, careless boy, who raced about among the other
children, and did not seem to think much about anything. Lewis often
wished he could have somebody to talk with, and he wondered if his
mother would ever come back again.
Had he been a poet he might have put his wishes into verses like the
following, in which Mrs. Follen has given beautiful expression to the
wishes of such a slave boy as Lewis:
THE SLAVE BOY'S WISH.
I wish I was that little bird,
Up in the bright blue sky,
That sings and flies just where he will,
And no one asks him why.
I wish I was that little brook,
That runs so swift along,
Through pretty flowers and shining stones,
Singing a merry song.
I wish I was that butterfly,
Without a thought or care,
Sporting my pretty, brilliant wings,
Like a flower in the air.
I wish I was that wild, wild deer,
I saw the other day,
Who swifter than an arrow flew,
Through the forest far away.
I wish I was that little cloud,
By the gentle south wind driven,
Floating along so free and bright,
Far, far up into heaven.
I'd rather be a cunning fox,
And hide me in a cave;
I'd rather be a savage wolf,
Than what I am--a slave.
My mother calls me her good boy,
My father calls me brave;
What wicked action have I done,
That I should be a slave?
I saw my little sister sold,
So will they do to me;
My heavenly Father, let me die,
For then I shall be free.
So talking to himself he fell into a doze, and dreamed about his mother.
He thought her large serious eyes were looking into his, and her long
black hair falling over his face. His mother was part Indian and part
white, with only just enough of the black to make her hair a little
curly. It don't make much difference what color people are in the slave
states. If the mothers are slaves the children are slaves too, even if
they are nine-tenths white.
From this pleasant dream Lewis was roused by a splash of cold water, and
Aunt Sally, with her head out of the window, was calling, "Here you lazy
nigger! come here and grind this coffee for me." And the little boy
awoke to find himself a friendless orphan, in a cold world with a
cruel master.
The next morning Lewis was playing about the yard with as good a will as
any of the young negroes. Children's troubles don't last long, and to
see him turning somersets, singing Jim Crow, and kicking up a row
generally, you would suppose he had forgotten all about the lost primer
and his mother too.
He was in the greatest possible glee in the afternoon, at being sent
with another boy, Jim, to carry a package to Mr. Pond's. Then he was
trusted, so he put himself on his dignity, and did not turn more than
twenty somersets on the way. In coming back, as they had no package to
carry, they took it into their heads to cut across lots, though it was
no nearer than the road. Still it made them plenty of exercise in
climbing fences and walking log bridges across the brooks. While doing
this they came in sight of some white pond-lilies, and all at once it
occurred to Lewis that it would be right nice to get some of them for
Miss Katy, to buy up her good-will, for he was afraid she would be very
angry when she found that he had lost the primer. So he waded and
paddled about till he had collected quite a handful of them, in spite of
Jim's hurrying up, and telling him that he would get his head broke, for
missus had told them to be quick.
When he had gathered a large handful he started on the run for home,
stopping only once or twice to admire the fragrant, lovely flowers; and
he felt their beauty quite as much, I dare say, as Miss Katy would.
When they were passing the quarters, as the place is called where the
huts of the slaves are built, Aunt Sally put her head out of the cabin
door, and seeing him, she called out, "Here, Lew, here's your mother."
The boy forgot his lilies, dropped them, and running to the door, he saw
within a strange woman sitting on a bench. Was _that_ his mother? She
turned her large dark eyes for a moment upon him, and then she sprang to
meet him. His little heart was ready to overflow with tears of joy, and
he expected to be overwhelmed with caresses, just as you would if you
should meet your mother after being separated from her more than a year.
Imagine his terror, then, as she seized him rudely by the wrists and
exclaimed, "It's you, is it? a little slave boy! I'll fix you so they'll
never get you!"
Then she picked him up in her arms and started to run with him, as if
she would throw him into the well. The little fellow screamed with
fright. Aunt Sally ran after her, crying at the top of her voice,
"Nancy, O Nancy! don't now!" And then a big negro darted out of the
stables, crying "Stop her there! catch her!"
All this hubbub roused the people at the house, and Master Stamford
forthwith appeared on the verandah, with a crowd of servants of all
sizes. Amid the orders, and cries, and general confusion that followed,
Nancy was caught, Lewis was taken away, and she was carried back to the
cabin, while the big negro was preparing to tie her. As she entered the
cabin, her eye caught sight of a knife that lay there, and snatching it
up, she gave herself a bad wound with it. Poor woman, she was tired of
her miserable life. I don't wonder that she wanted to die.
Was it right, you ask, for her to take her own life? Certainly not. But
let us see what led to this attempt.
For a long time she had been separated from Lewis and Ned, the last of
her children that remained to her. To be sure, the other three were
probably living somewhere, and so was her husband. But she only knew
that they had gone into hopeless servitude, where she knew not. Indeed,
she did not know but that they were already dead, and she did not expect
ever to hear, for slaves are seldom able to write, and often not
permitted to when they can. If there had only been hope of hearing from
them at some time or other she could have endured it. But between her
and those loved ones there rested a thick cloud of utter darkness;
beyond that they might be toiling, groaning, bleeding, starving, dying
beneath the oppressor's lash in the deadly swamp, or in the teeth of the
cruel hounds, and she could not have the privilege of ministering to the
least of their wants, of soothing one of their sorrows, or even dropping
a silent tear beside them. If she could have heard only _one_ fact about
them it would have been some relief. But she could not enjoy even this
poor privilege. And then came the dead, heavy stillness of despair
creeping over her spirits.
Do you wonder that she became perfectly wild, and beside herself at
times? How would you feel if all you loved best were carried off by a
cruel slave-driver, and you had _no hope_ of hearing from them again in
this world?
During these dreadful fits of insanity she would bewail the living as
worse than dead, and pray God to take them away. Then she would curse
herself for being the mother of slave children, declaring that it would
be far better to see them die in their childhood, than to see them grow
up to suffer as she had suffered.
She lived only a few miles from her old home; but her new master was an
uncommonly hard man, and would not permit her to go and see her
children. He said it would only make her worse, and his slaves should
learn that they were not to put on airs and have whims. It was their
business to live for him. Didn't he pay enough for them, and see that
they were well fed and clothed, and what more did they want? This he
called kind treatment. Very kind, indeed, not to allow a mother to go
and see her own children! But when she was taken with those insane
spells, and would go on so about her children that she was not fit to
work, indeed could not be made to work, it was finally suggested to him
that a visit to her children would do her good.
This was the occasion of her present visit, and it was because she was
insane that she attempted to take her own life. The wound, however, was
not very deep, and Nancy did not die at this time. After the doctor had
been there and dressed her wound, and affairs had become quiet, Lewis
stole to the door of the cabin. He was afraid to go in. He hardly knew,
any of the time, whether that strange wild woman could be his mother,
only they told him she was. There was blood spattered here and there on
the bare earth that served as a floor to the cabin, and on a straw
mattress at one side lay the strange woman. Her eyes were shut, and now
that she was more composed, he saw in the lineaments of that pale face
the features of his mother; But her once glossy black hair had turned
almost white since she had been away, and altogether there was such a
wild expression that he was afraid, and crept quietly away again.