Galt
Mrs. Henry Gowens
My name in the South was Martha Martin. When I came to the North I took the name of Martha Bentley—Bentley being my mother’s name before she was married. My father was my master, Mr.—, who died in 1843. He lived in Georgia, but removed with one set of farm hands to Mississippi. He had one other child by my mother, but it died young. He liberated all the children he had by my mother, and one other slave woman, with one exception—that was a daughter whom he had educated and put to the milliner’s trade. After she had learned the trade, he went to the place where she was, with money to establish her in business. But he found she had two children by a white man. The father of the two children came on, and offered two thousand dollars for the woman and the children, as he wished to marry her. But her father would neither let him have her nor his children. Afterwards he offered three thousand dollars,—then five other grown-up slaves, for Minerva and the two children; but my master told him he would not, but if he ever set foot on the farm again, he would blow his brains out. So, I suppose, they are slaves yet, and will be: for their mistress never was disposed to sell; she would rather keep them and punish them, on account of his having so many wives. But he had told her beforehand, and said she need not find fault with it: all his wives were equally well used. Keep on the right side of him, and he was very kind: every slave would be well treated. He did not mind if they stole from him, but if they stole from another man, he would whip them. He was Scotch Irish.
My mother had been set free on the eastern shore of Maryland, in this way. When she died, she left her to wait on her niece until the niece died, she being very low,—then her free papers were to be given her. That was in the white woman’s will. The niece died in two or three weeks, and then they talked of selling my mother to the traders, because they had got so little work out of her. Then they all—the whole family—ran away into New Jersey. My master bought them running, and kidnapped my mother and her cousin’s family, although he knew the circumstances, and that they were entitled to their freedom.
When I was twelve years old, my father took me to Cincinnati. He charged me to marry neither a white man nor a black man: if I should, he would take me back south, and put me on the farm. There he paid one year’s tuition in advance, and money for shoes,—we had clothes enough. Two others went with me,—one a half brother, the other a half sister. But I was cheated out of my education: for the guardian in Cincinnati kept the money, but did not send me to school, excepting one year: whereas I was to have gone three. When my father heard of this, he started on to see to it, but fell sick and died before he got there. He was a large, heavy man, and had been liable to sudden fits of illness. When these came on, he would be frightened very much, and would send for some of the pious