Toronto
Patrick Snead
I belonged in Savannah, Georgia. I am as white as my master was, but I was born a slave. My first master dying, I fell to one of the sons, who died when I was about fifteen. He was a sporting character. He had always promised my mother to give me my freedom at some time,—as soon as I could take care of myself. I was sent to school a little while by mother, so that I could spell quite well,—but I have lost it all. My master gave me no religious instruction, but I was allowed to attend a Sunday School for colored children. I was put to the cooper’s trade, which I learned in five years. While my master lived I was well used. But at length he was taken sick with consumption; I attended him, and took care of him. I said nothing to him about my freedom, not feeling any great interest in the matter at that time. I have good reason to believe that he was persuaded not to set me free. At length he departed this life.
After his death, the doctor’s bill of three hundred dollars had to be satisfied out of the estate. Other property being deficient, I was given up, and was for one day the property of the physician. I was then sold to a wholesale merchant for five hundred dollars. The merchant employed me about the store four years; he found me smarter than many others, and I had to work hard, lifting heavy bales of goods. This lifting caused me to wear a truss some time before I left. In the easiest time of the year, the summer, my working hours were from 6 in the morning to 7 in the evening. In the fall and spring I worked from 6 in the morning until 12 at night, the bales of goods being opened in the night: in the winter from 6 to 6. I had plenty of food and good common clothing. The merchant’s manner of address to me was generally pleasant: I had the privilege of going to church on Sundays, if I pleased.
He never on Saturday nights allowed me any money: I liked female society as well as he did, and wanted some spending money. I was not provoked to ask for it by seeing others have money, but I felt that I ought to be allowed something for my encouragement, after performing so much hard labor. His answer was, that he gave me enough to eat. I told him that he would have to sell me, “for to work in this way I shall not.” He grinned and bore it.
About a year before this I had been attentive to a young free-woman who lived with her aunt. One evening, on leaving, the aunt cautioned me to tell Billy (a boy on the place) to fasten the gate after me, as the night before he had left it open. Accordingly, on coming out, I said, “Billy, be careful to fasten the gate, for you did not fasten it the night before.” There was, as I afterwards learned, a white man concealed behind a tree close by,—he heard me, and fancied that what I said was meant to hit him in some way; for he meanwhile was, unbeknown to me, sustaining a peculiar relation to the very girl that I was visiting. The next day that man said he would buy me, if it cost him a thousand dollar