Part 1 (1/2)
Biography of a Slave
by Charles Tho this book I hope to do good not only to my own race, but to all who may read it I am not a book-maker, and make no pretensions to literary attainments; and I have made no efforts to create forranks I claim for my book truthfulness and honesty of purpose, and upon that basis it raphy of a Slave is called for by a very large number of my immediate acquaintances, and, I am assured, will meet with such reception as to justify the expense I have incurred in having it printed and bound To the members of the United Brethren Church, white as well as colored, I look for help in the sale and circulation of my work, yet I ae from members of all Christian churches everywhere
The book is written in the narrative style, as being much better suited to the tastes and capacities of lish language, discarding the idionorant whites, expecting thereby to help educate the blacks in the use of proper language
I am indebted to Willialas County, Illinois, for his valuable assistance in the preparation of my manuscript for the printer He has re-written the whole of it forthe book before the public
CHARLES THOMPSON
New, 1874
CHAPTER I
Charles Thompson, born in Atala County, Mississippi--Division of Kirkwood's Slaves A his Six Children--The Writer and his Two Sisters Fall to Mrs Wilson--The Parting Between Mother and Child--Deprived of a Fond Mother Forever--Old Uncle Jack--Wilson Buys Uncle Ben from Strucker--Uncle Ben Runs Away and is Hunted with Blood-Hounds--Two Hundred Dollars Reward
I was a slave, and was born in Atala County, Mississippi, near the town of Rockford, on the third day of March, 1833 My father and ree is not traceable, by ed to a e slave-owner Kirkwood died when I was about nine years old, after which, upon the settle to the estate were divided equally, as to value, a the six heirs There were about seventy-five slaves to be divided into six lots; and great was the tribulation a the poor blacks when they learned that they were to be separated
When the division was completed two of my sisters and myself were cast into one lot, my mother into another, and my father into another, and the rest of the fa and slave as I was, I felt the pang of separation from my loved and revered mother; child that I was I mourned for mother, even before our final separation, as one dead to me forever So early to be deprived of a fond ave me my first view of the curse of slavery Until this time I did not knohat trouble was, but frolorious Emancipation Proclah hardshi+p after hardshi+p, in quick succession, and many, many times I have almost seen and tasted death
I bade farewell to s of that moment Even after thirty years have elapsed the scene coloomy, dark cloud seemed to pass before my vision, and the very air seemed to still with awfulness I felt bereaved, forlorn, forsaken, lost Put yourself in my place; feel what I have felt, and then say, God is just; he will protect the helpless and right the wronged, and you will have soh long and weary years of servitude My mother, et her last words; never will I forget the earnest prayers of thatto be comforted She had fallen to the lot of Mrs Anderson, and she pleaded with burning tears strea down her cheeks, ”He is est and the only son I have; please let hly to her and told her to hold her peace; but with her ar to me and cried the louder, ”Let me have my child; if you will let me have my baby you may have all the rest!”
Mothers can realize this situation only, who have parted with children who with your dearest child, never to see it again; to be thrown into life-servitude in one part of the country and your dear child in the sah my mother was black, she had a soul; she had a heart to feel just as you have, and I, her child, was being ruthlessly torn from her by inexorable ”law” What would you have done if you had been in her place? _She_ prayed to God for help
My kind old father consoled and encouraged ed, for Jesus is your friend; if you lack for knowledge, he will inform you, and if you meet with troubles and trials on your way, cast all your cares on Jesus, and don't forget to pray” The old , and saying farewell to my mother He had, in a manner, raised nearly all the colored people on the plantation; so he had a fatherly feeling for all of them The old man looked down on me, and said, ”My child, you are noithout a father and will soon be without a ood boy, and God will be father and mother to you If you will put your trust in him and pray to him, he will take you home to heaven when you die, where you canwill be no more Farewell” I was then taken from my mother, and have not seen or heard of her since--about twenty-nine years ago Old Uncle Jack, as my father was called by the plantation people, spoke words of comfort to all of us before ere parted
The lot of human chattels, of which I was one, was taken to their new home on Wilson's plantation, in the same county as the Kirkwood plantation Wilson told my sisters and myself that our mother and ourselves were about six hundred miles apart
After I had been in ht my uncle Ben frohborhood, but he did not buy uncle Ben's wife Two years later Wilson moved to another plantation he owned in Pontotoc County, Mississippi, about one hundredwilling to go so far from his wife, ran away from his master Wilson, however, left word that if any one would catch and return Ben to him, he would pay two hundred dollars This was a bait not to be resisted The professional slave-hunters, with their blood-hounds, were soon on the track They failed to get the poor huntedhty, in his serious trials, and never failed to find help when most needed
He stayed under cover in the woods, in such lurking places as the nature of the country provided, in the day tiht would cautiously approach his wife's cabin, when, at an appointed signal, she would let hiive him such food and care as his condition required The slaves of the South were united in the one particular of helping each other in such cases as this, and would adopt ingenious telegranals to communicate with each other; and it enius of the blacks was, as a general thing, equal to all eencies, and when driven to extremities they were brave to a fault
Ben's wife, in this instance, used the siarment in a particular spot, easily to be seen from Ben's covert, and which denoted that the coast was clear and no danger need be apprehended The gared every day, yet the signals thus made were true to the purpose, and saved uncle Ben from capture Uncle Ben was closely chased by the hounds and inhued into a strea to the water threw the hounds off the scent of the track Before reaching the stream, uncle Ben was so closely pursued that one of theunpleasantly close to hiun-shot This race for life and liberty was only one of a continued series, and was repeated as often as blood-hounds could find a track to follow At night Ben was veryanything to eat was to reach his wife's cabin How to do this without being observed, was the question As well as he was able, about ht he left his retreat and approached the cabin It was too dark to see a signal if one had been placed for hiht light shot through the cracks in the cabin for an instant, and was repeated at intervals of two or three nal of ”all right” agreed upon between uncle Ben and his wife, and was ht under a vessel and raising the vessel for a ave _his_ signal by rapping on the door three times, and after a short pause three e to meet; the husband to obtain food to sustain life, and the wife to ad was unusually impressive
She had heard the death-hounds, the sound of the gun-shot, and she knew the yelps of the hounds and the shot were intended for Ben, her husband With no crime laid to him, he was hunted down as a wild beast
Made in God's own ie, he is made a slave, a brute, an outcast, and an outlaw because his skin is black Thus they met, Ben and his wife After the usual precautions and ratulations they both kneeled before the throne of God and thanked hi theoodness and bounty, asked help in their need and safety in the future Without rising frouish of his heart, consoled his wife, reht”
The blacks of the South have their own peculiar moral maxims, applicable to all situations in life, and the slaves not knowing how to read committed such Bible truths as were read to theenerally superstitious in a great degree, as all ignorant persons are; yet their native sense of right led theious principles, dressed in hos,”
their circu at a time in his wife's cabin, as a strict watch was constantly kept, that the runawayhis wife farewell, Ben hastened back to one of a nuh the day, unless routed out by the blood-hounds He was fortunate, however, in the help of God, for his safety, and the efforts of the hounds and the hounds' folloere futile