St. Catharines
David West
I came from King and Queen county, Va., where I left a wife and four children. I was treated well—I paid my master two hundred dollars a year, and acted honorably all through the time I remained there. My master died, and I heard that I was to be sold, which would separate me from my family, and knowing no law which would defend me, I concluded to come away.
When my master died, I made his coffin and buried him. I am a carpenter, and well known in King and Queen county. I did not believe that slavery was right, but as I was born there, and had a family there, I tried to content myself to remain, and should probably have done so, but for the dread of being sold south. My mistress told me that I was not to be sold, and my master’s brother told me the same,—but I had seen him carry away my father, sister, and aunt to Alabama to be sold: my father being then sixty years old. When he returned, I asked him “what he had done with my father?”—all he said was, “Sir?” and that was all the answer he made me. Of course I could not believe him, when he said I was not to be sold: for he had fooled my father with the story that he was going to remove to Alabama himself. Gentlemen in the neighborhood told me I was going to be sold.
When I left, I told my purpose to no one. I studied a plan by which I might get away, and I succeeded.
I am now in Canada doing well at my trade, and I expect to do yet better. My only trouble is about my wife and family. I never should have come away but for being forced away.
A Baptist preacher told me once, when I was working for him, that there was no country in the world equal to Virginia. My answer was, “Yes, I believe it is the greatest country in the world: for one third of the people are doing nothing, and the other two thirds are working to support them.” He then spoke of something else.
My family are perpetually on my mind. I should be perfectly happy if I could have my wife and the four children. If my wife had known it, and had said half a word, I should have stayed to the moment of being sold.
I look upon slavery as a disgrace, and as breaking the laws of God: that no man can keep the laws of God and hold to slavery. I believe my own master was as good a man as there is in the whole South: I loved him in health, and I loved him in death,—but I can read the Bible, and I do not see any thing there by which he could be justified in holding slaves: and I know not where he has gone to.
It is a common remark that they have a right to hold the slaves, because they were given them by their fathers,—justifying their own sins by those of their fathers: would it excuse them for stealing or drinking, to say that their fathers were thieves and drunkards?
I was taught, secretly, to read, but never taught to write: I feel that I have been wrongfully deprived of the knowledge of writing. I could have done better for myself every way had I known how to write.
I was led to religious knowledge, by hearing old colo