My wife and my­self were born in dif­fer­ent towns in the State of Geor­gia, which is one of the prin­ci­pal slave States. It is true, our con­di­tion as slaves was not by any means the worst; but the mere idea that we were held as chat­tels, and de­prived of all legal rights—the thought that we had to give up our hard earn­ings to a tyrant, to en­able him to live in idle­ness and lux­u­ry—the thought that we could not call the bones and sinews that God gave us our own: but above all, the fact that an­oth­er man had the power to tear from our cra­dle the new-born babe and sell it in the sham­bles like a brute, and then scourge us if we dared to lift a fin­ger to save it from such a fate, haunt­ed us for years.

But in De­cem­ber, 1848, a plan sug­gest­ed it­self that proved quite suc­cess­ful, and in eight days after it was first thought of we were free from the hor­ri­ble tram­mels of slav­ery, re­joic­ing and prais­ing God in the glo­ri­ous sun­shine of lib­er­ty.

My wife's first mas­ter was her fa­ther, and her moth­er his slave, and the lat­ter is still the slave of his widow.

Notwith­stand­ing my wife being of African ex­trac­tion on her moth­er's side, she is al­most white—in fact, she is so near­ly so that the tyran­ni­cal old lady to whom she first be­longed be­came so an­noyed, at find­ing her fre­quent­ly mis­tak­en for a child of the fam­i­ly, that she gave her when eleven years of age to a daugh­ter, as a wed­ding pre­sent. This sep­a­rat­ed my wife from her moth­er, and also from sev­er­al other dear friends. But the in­ces­sant cru­el­ty of her old mis­tress made the change of own­ers or treat­ment so de­sir­able, that she did not grum­ble much at this cruel sep­a­ra­tion.

It may be re­mem­bered that slav­ery in Amer­i­ca is not at all con­fined to per­sons of any par­tic­u­lar com­plex­ion; there are a very large num­ber of slaves as white as any one; but as the ev­i­dence of a slave is not ad­mit­ted in court against a free white per­son, it is al­most im­pos­si­ble for a white child, after hav­ing been kid­napped and sold into or re­duced to slav­ery, in a part of the coun­try where it is not known (as often is the case), ever to re­cov­er its free­dom.

I have my­self con­versed with sev­er­al slaves who told me that their par­ents were white and free; but that they were stolen away from them and sold when quite young. As they could not tell their ad­dress, and also as the par­ents did not know what had be­come of their lost and dear lit­tle ones, of course all traces of each other were gone.

The fol­low­ing facts are suf­fi­cient to prove, that he who has the power, and is in­hu­man enough to tram­ple upon the sa­cred rights of the weak, cares noth­ing for race or colour:—

In March, 1818, three ships ar­rived at New Or­leans, bring­ing sev­er­al hun­dred Ger­man em­i­grants from the province of Al­sace, on the lower Rhine. Among them were Daniel Muller and his two daugh­ters, Dorothea and Sa­lome, whose moth­er had died on the pas­sage. Soon after his ar­rival, Muller, tak­ing with him his two daugh­ters, both young chil­dren, went up the river to At­taka­pas parish, to work on the plan­ta­tion of John F. Miller. A few weeks later, his rel­a­tives, who had re­mained at New Or­leans, learned that he had died of the fever of the coun­try. They im­me­di­ate­ly sent for the two girls; but they had dis­ap­peared, and the rel­a­tives, notwith­stand­ing re­peat­ed and per­se­ver­ing in­quiries and re­search­es, could find no traces of them. They were at length given up for dead. Dorothea was never again heard of; nor was any thing known of Sa­lome from 1818 till 1843.

In the sum­mer of that year, Madame Karl, a Ger­man woman who had come over in the same ship with the Mullers, was pass­ing through a street in New Or­leans, and ac­ci­den­tal­ly saw Sa­lome in a wine-shop, be­long­ing to Louis Bel­monte, by whom she was held as a slave. Madame Karl recog­nised her at once, and car­ried her to the house of an­oth­er Ger­man woman, Mrs. Schu­bert, who was Sa­lome's cousin and god­moth­er, and who no soon­er set eyes on her than, with­out hav­ing any in­ti­ma­tion that the dis­cov­ery had been pre­vi­ous­ly made, she un­hesi­tat­ing­ly ex­claimed, "My God! here is the long-lost Sa­lome Muller."

The Law Re­porter, in its ac­count of this case, says:—

"As many of the Ger­man em­i­grants of 1818 as could be gath­ered to­geth­er were brought to the house of Mrs. Schu­bert, and every one of the num­ber who had any rec­ol­lec­tion of the lit­tle girl upon the pas­sage, or any ac­quain­tance with her fa­ther and moth­er, im­me­di­ate­ly iden­ti­fied the woman be­fore them as the long-lost Sa­lome Muller. By all these wit­ness­es, who ap­peared at the trial, the iden­ti­ty was fully es­tab­lished. The fam­i­ly re­sem­blance in every fea­ture was de­clared to be so re­mark­able, that some of the wit­ness­es did not hes­i­tate to say that they should know her among ten thou­sand; that they were as cer­tain the plain­tiff was Sa­lome Muller, the daugh­ter of Daniel and Dorothea Muller, as of their own ex­is­tence."

Among the wit­ness­es who ap­peared in Court was the mid­wife who had as­sist­ed at the birth of Sa­lome. She tes­ti­fied to the ex­is­tence of cer­tain pe­cu­liar marks upon the body of the child, which were found, ex­act­ly as de­scribed, by the sur­geons who were ap­point­ed by the Court to make an ex­am­i­na­tion for the pur­pose.

There was no trace of African de­scent in any fea­ture of Sa­lome Muller. She had long, straight, black hair, hazel eyes, thin lips, and a Roman nose. The com­plex­ion of her face and neck was as dark as that of the dark­est brunette. It ap­pears, how­ev­er, that, dur­ing the twen­ty-five years of her servi­tude, she had been ex­posed to the sun's rays in the hot cli­mate of Louisiana, with head and neck un­shel­tered, as is cus­tom­ary with the fe­male slaves, while labour­ing in the cot­ton or the sugar field. Those parts of her per­son which had been shield­ed from the sun were com­par­a­tive­ly white.

Bel­monte, the pre­tend­ed owner of the girl, had ob­tained pos­ses­sion of her by an act of sale from John F. Miller, the planter in whose ser­vice Sa­lome's fa­ther died. This Miller was a man of con­sid­er­a­tion and sub­stance, own­ing large sugar es­tates, and bear­ing a high rep­u­ta­tion for hon­our and hon­esty, and for in­dul­gent treat­ment of his slaves. It was tes­ti­fied on the trial that he had said to Bel­monte, a few weeks after the sale of Sa­lome, "that she was white, and had as much right to her free­dom as any one, and was only to be re­tained in slav­ery by care and kind treat­ment." The bro­ker who ne­go­ti­at­ed the sale from Miller to Bel­monte, in 1838, tes­ti­fied in Court that he then thought, and still thought, that the girl was white!

The case was elab­o­rate­ly ar­gued on both sides, but was at length de­cid­ed in favour of the girl, by the Supreme Court declar­ing that "she was free and white, and there­fore un­law­ful­ly held in bondage."

The Rev. George Bourne, of Vir­ginia, in his Pic­ture of Slav­ery, pub­lished in 1834, re­lates the case of a white boy who, at the age of seven, was stolen from his home in Ohio, tanned and stained in such a way that he could not be dis­tin­guished from a per­son of colour, and then sold as a slave in Vir­ginia. At the age of twen­ty, he made his es­cape, by run­ning away, and hap­pi­ly suc­ceed­ed in re­join­ing his par­ents.

I have known worth­less white peo­ple to sell their own free chil­dren into slav­ery; and, as there are good-for-noth­ing white as well as coloured per­sons ev­ery­where, no one, per­haps, will won­der at such in­hu­man trans­ac­tions: par­tic­u­lar­ly in the South­ern States of Amer­i­ca, where I be­lieve there is a greater want of hu­man­i­ty and high prin­ci­ple amongst the whites, than among any other civ­i­lized peo­ple in the world.

I know that those who are not fa­mil­iar with the work­ing of "the pe­cu­liar in­sti­tu­tion," can scarce­ly imag­ine any one so to­tal­ly de­void of all nat­u­ral af­fec­tion as to sell his own off­spring into re­turn­less bondage. But Shake­speare, that great ob­serv­er of human na­ture, says:—

"With cau­tion judge of prob­a­bil­i­ties.

Things deemed un­like­ly, e'en im­pos­si­ble,

Ex­pe­ri­ence often shews us to be true."

My wife's new mis­tress was de­cid­ed­ly more hu­mane than the ma­jor­i­ty of her class. My wife has al­ways given her cred­it for not ex­pos­ing her to many of the worst fea­tures of slav­ery. For in­stance, it is a com­mon prac­tice in the slave States for ladies, when angry with their maids, to send them to the caly­buce sug­ar-house, or to some other place es­tab­lished for the pur­pose of pun­ish­ing slaves, and have them severe­ly flogged; and I am sorry it is a fact, that the vil­lains to whom those de­fence­less crea­tures are sent, not only flog them as they are or­dered, but fre­quent­ly com­pel them to sub­mit to the great­est in­dig­ni­ty. Oh! if there is any one thing under the wide canopy of heav­en, hor­ri­ble enough to stir a man's soul, and to make his very blood boil, it is the thought of his dear wife, his un­pro­tect­ed sis­ter, or his young and vir­tu­ous daugh­ters, strug­gling to save them­selves from falling a prey to such demons!

It al­ways ap­pears strange to me that any one who was not born a slave­hold­er, and steeped to the very core in the de­mor­al­iz­ing at­mo­sphere of the South­ern States, can in any way pal­li­ate slav­ery. It is still more sur­pris­ing to see vir­tu­ous ladies look­ing with pa­tience upon, and re­main­ing in­dif­fer­ent to, the ex­is­tence of a sys­tem that ex­pos­es near­ly two mil­lions of their own sex in the man­ner I have men­tioned, and that too in a pro­fess­ed­ly free and Chris­tian coun­try. There is, how­ev­er, great con­so­la­tion in know­ing that God is just, and will not let the op­pres­sor of the weak, and the spoil­er of the vir­tu­ous, es­cape un­pun­ished here and here­after.

I be­lieve a sim­i­lar re­tri­bu­tion to that which de­stroyed Sodom is hang­ing over the slave­hold­ers. My sin­cere prayer is that they may not pro­voke God, by per­sist­ing in a reck­less course of wicked­ness, to pour out his con­sum­ing wrath upon them.

I must now re­turn to our his­to­ry.

My old mas­ter had the rep­u­ta­tion of being a very hu­mane and Chris­tian man, but he thought noth­ing of sell­ing my poor old fa­ther, and dear aged moth­er, at sep­a­rate times, to dif­fer­ent per­sons, to be dragged off never to be­hold each other again, till sum­moned to ap­pear be­fore the great tri­bunal of heav­en. But, oh! what a happy meet­ing it will be on that day for those faith­ful souls. I say a happy meet­ing, be­cause I never saw per­sons more de­vot­ed to the ser­vice of God than they. But how will the case stand with those reck­less traf­fick­ers in human flesh and blood, who plunged the poi­sonous dag­ger of sep­a­ra­tion into those lov­ing hearts which God had for so many years close­ly joined to­geth­er—nay, sealed as it were with his own hands for the eter­nal courts of heav­en? It is not for me to say what will be­come of those heart­less tyrants. I must leave them in the hands of an all-wise and just God, who will, in his own good time, and in his own way, avenge the wrongs of his op­pressed peo­ple.

My old mas­ter also sold a dear broth­er and a sis­ter, in the same man­ner as he did my fa­ther and moth­er. The rea­son he as­signed for dis­pos­ing of my par­ents, as well as of sev­er­al other aged slaves, was, that "they were get­ting old, and would soon be­come val­ue­less in the mar­ket, and there­fore he in­tend­ed to sell off all the old stock, and buy in a young lot." A most dis­grace­ful con­clu­sion for a man to come to, who made such great pro­fes­sions of re­li­gion!

This shame­ful con­duct gave me a thor­ough ha­tred, not for true

Chris­tian­i­ty, but for slave-hold­ing piety.

My old mas­ter, then, wish­ing to make the most of the rest of his slaves, ap­pren­ticed a broth­er and my­self out to learn trades: he to a black­smith, and my­self to a cab­i­net-mak­er. If a slave has a good trade, he will let or sell for more than a per­son with­out one, and many slave-hold­ers have their slaves taught trades on this ac­count. But be­fore our time ex­pired, my old mas­ter want­ed money; so he sold my broth­er, and then mort­gaged my sis­ter, a dear girl about four­teen years of age, and my­self, then about six­teen, to one of the banks, to get money to spec­u­late in cot­ton. This we knew noth­ing of at the mo­ment; but time rolled on, the money be­came due, my mas­ter was un­able to meet his pay­ments; so the bank had us placed upon the auc­tion stand and sold to the high­est bid­der.

My poor sis­ter was sold first: she was knocked down to a planter who resid­ed at some dis­tance in the coun­try. Then I was called upon the stand. While the auc­tion­eer was cry­ing the bids, I saw the man that had pur­chased my sis­ter get­ting her into a cart, to take her to his home. I at once asked a slave friend who was stand­ing near the plat­form, to run and ask the gen­tle­man if he would please to wait till I was sold, in order that I might have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of bid­ding her good-bye. He sent me word back that he had some dis­tance to go, and could not wait.

I then turned to the auc­tion­eer, fell upon my knees, and humbly prayed him to let me just step down and bid my last sis­ter farewell. But, in­stead of grant­ing me this re­quest, he grasped me by the neck, and in a com­mand­ing tone of voice, and with a vi­o­lent oath, ex­claimed, "Get up! You can do the wench no good; there­fore there is no use in your see­ing her."

On ris­ing, I saw the cart in which she sat mov­ing slow­ly off; and, as she clasped her hands with a grasp that in­di­cat­ed de­spair, and looked piti­ful­ly round to­wards me, I also saw the large silent tears trick­ling down her cheeks. She made a farewell bow, and buried her face in her lap. This seemed more than I could bear. It ap­peared to swell my aching heart to its ut­most. But be­fore I could fair­ly re­cov­er, the poor girl was gone;—gone, and I have never had the good for­tune to see her from that day to this! Per­haps I should have never heard of her again, had it not been for the un­tir­ing ef­forts of my good old moth­er, who be­came free a few years ago by pur­chase, and, after a great deal of dif­fi­cul­ty, found my sis­ter re­sid­ing with a fam­i­ly in Mis­sis­sip­pi. My moth­er at once wrote to me, in­form­ing me of the fact, and re­quest­ing me to do some­thing to get her free; and I am happy to say that, part­ly by lec­tur­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly, and through the sale of an en­grav­ing of my wife in the dis­guise in which she es­caped, to­geth­er with the ex­treme kind­ness and gen­eros­i­ty of Miss Bur­dett Coutts, Mr. George Richard­son of Ply­mouth, and a few other friends, I have near­ly ac­com­plished this. It would be to me a great and ev­er-glo­ri­ous achieve­ment to re­store my sis­ter to our dear moth­er, from whom she was forcibly driv­en in early life.

I was knocked down to the cashier of the bank to which we were mort­gaged, and or­dered to re­turn to the cab­i­net shop where I pre­vi­ous­ly worked.

But the thought of the harsh auc­tion­eer not al­low­ing me to bid my dear sis­ter farewell, sent red-hot in­dig­na­tion dart­ing like light­ning through every vein. It quenched my tears, and ap­peared to set my brain on fire, and made me crave for power to avenge our wrongs! But alas! we were only slaves, and had no legal rights; con­se­quent­ly we were com­pelled to smoth­er our wound­ed feel­ings, and crouch be­neath the iron heel of despo­tism.

I must now give the ac­count of our es­cape; but, be­fore doing so, it may be well to quote a few pas­sages from the fun­da­men­tal laws of slav­ery; in order to give some idea of the legal as well as the so­cial tyran­ny from which we fled.

Ac­cord­ing to the law of Louisiana, "A slave is one who is in the power of a mas­ter to whom he be­longs. The mas­ter may sell him, dis­pose of his per­son, his in­dus­try, and his labour; he can do noth­ing, pos­sess noth­ing, nor ac­quire any­thing but what must be­long to his mas­ter." — Civil Code, art. 35.

In South Car­oli­na it is ex­pressed in the fol­low­ing lan­guage:—

"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, re­put­ed and judged in law to be chat­tels per­son­al in the hands of their own­ers and pos­ses­sors, and their ex­ecu­tors, ad­min­is­tra­tors, and as­signs, to all in­tents, con­struc­tions, and pur­pos­es what­so­ev­er." — 2 Bre­vard's Di­gest, 229.

The Con­sti­tu­tion of Geor­gia has the fol­low­ing (Art. 4, sec. 12):—"Any per­son who shall ma­li­cious­ly dis­mem­ber or de­prive a slave of life, shall suf­fer such pun­ish­ment as would be in­flict­ed in case the like of­fence had been com­mit­ted on a free white per­son, and on the like proof, ex­cept in case of in­sur­rec­tion of such slave, and un­less SUCH DEATH SHOULD HAP­PEN BY AC­CI­DENT IN GIV­ING SUCH SLAVE MOD­ER­ATE COR­REC­TION." — Prince's Di­gest, 559.

I have known slaves to be beat­en to death, but as they died under "mod­er­ate cor­rec­tion," it was quite law­ful; and of course the mur­der­ers were not in­ter­fered with.

"If any slave, who shall be out of the house or plan­ta­tion where such slave shall live, or shall be usu­al­ly em­ployed, or with­out some white per­son in com­pa­ny with such slave, shall REFUSE TO SUB­MIT to un­der­go the ex­am­i­na­tion of ANY WHITE per­son, (let him be ever so drunk or crazy), it shall be law­ful for such white per­son to pur­sue, ap­pre­hend, and mod­er­ate­ly cor­rect such slave; and if such slave shall as­sault and strike such white per­son, such slave may be LAW­FUL­LY KILLED."—2 Bre­vard's Di­gest, 231.

"Pro­vid­ed al­ways," says the law, "that such strik­ing be not done by the com­mand and in the de­fence of the per­son or prop­er­ty of the owner, or other per­son hav­ing the gov­ern­ment of such slave; in which case the slave shall be whol­ly ex­cused."

Ac­cord­ing to this law, if a slave, by the di­rec­tion of his over­seer, strike a white per­son who is beat­ing said over­seer's pig, "the slave shall be whol­ly ex­cused." But, should the bond­man, of his own ac­cord, fight to de­fend his wife, or should his ter­ri­fied daugh­ter in­stinc­tive­ly raise her hand and strike the wretch who at­tempts to vi­o­late her chasti­ty, he or she shall, saith the model re­pub­li­can law, suf­fer death.

From hav­ing been my­self a slave for near­ly twen­ty-three years, I am quite pre­pared to say, that the prac­ti­cal work­ing of slav­ery is worse than the odi­ous laws by which it is gov­erned.

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