Chatham
William Street
I am from Middle Tennessee, where I worked as a blacksmith, another man taking my wages. All I got was my victuals and clothes, and not much at that. Twenty-five years I was a slave,—was bred and born a slave, and cannot read or write.
She often showed me the place where he died. I was hired out when very young—did not get the lash. It was never “Can you do it?” or “Will you do it?”—but “You must go and do it.” Sometimes I would do a good day’s work, and then have another job put on me. I can’t paint it as bad as it is. I have seen a man at the iron-works—Perkins’s—who said he did not believe that there was a bit of skin on him that he was born with,—they had whipped it all off.
If a northern man were to go right into a slave State, he would not see the worst of slavery. By the time he was up in the morning, the slaves would be a mile off—he would see but little of the evil—he would n’t get to see it.
My master died when I was seven; my mistress when I was twenty-five. Then we were divided out: I fell to a son who lived in Mississippi. I had been living with a doctor two years, and I asked him to buy me. But my master would n’t sell—the doctor offered $1,100 for me. I was put in jail five days—I and my brother, who had fallen to the same man, were there. Our owner came in with irons and handcuffs, and put them on, and took us to the blacksmith to have them riveted. I left two men in the jail who had run away from Mississippi, and had lain there eleven months,—in one month to be sold. One of them was a great fellow to pray: I’d hear him praying every morning for the Lord to help him. He said he wished the doctor would buy me. The rivets were fixed: we went to Nashville, and were put on board a steamboat, I and my brother chained together. They were loading the boat, which takes two or three days. I heard some one tell a colored man to pump the boilers full, and they’d put out in the morning. I said to my brother, “When you hear me say to-night, the dog’s dead, then we ‘ll put out.”
At 11 o’clock we laid down. I made believe that something ailed me, and kept going out. By and by, I said “the dog’s dead.” We crept into the wheelhouse, and down on the wheel, to the outside of the guard, and got on board a stone-coal boat. We walked eighteen miles that night,—but we were not away yet—yet had no thought about Canada. I had heard of it, but had no thought about getting to it. We laid down, meaning to stay till next night.
Two men went out to hunt partridges, and at about one o’clock they came across us. “What are you doing here, boys?” We had broken off the chains, but the handcuffs were on each of us. “I am going to Columbia—did n’t you see that wagon with the boiler on it?” They said, “Come, go this way,” and one threatened with his gun. We up and ran. The slaveholders both followed us. We ran across a field about half a mile: when we got across there was a mill and a creek. We ran through the creek: there was a big hill. I wen