Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America | Page 2

or of increasing the zeal of those who are
associated for the purpose of 'breaking every yoke and setting the
oppressed free.'
GEORGE THOMPSON.
_9, Blandford Place, Regent's Park_, _October 18th, 1842._

NARRATIVE.
My name is Moses Grandy. I was born in Camden county, North
Carolina. I believe I am fifty-six years old. Slaves seldom know exactly
how old they are; neither they nor their masters set down the time of a

birth; the slaves, because they are not allowed to write or read, and the
masters, because they only care to know what slaves belong to them.
The master, Billy Grandy, whose slave I was born, was a hard-drinking
man; he sold away many slaves. I remember four sisters and four
brothers; my mother had more children, but they were dead or sold
away before I can remember. I was the youngest. I remember well my
mother often hid us all in the woods, to prevent master selling us.
When we wanted water, she sought for it in any hole or puddle formed
by falling trees or otherwise. It was often full of tadpoles and insects.
She strained it, and gave it round to each of us in the hollow of her
hand. For food, she gathered berries in the woods, got potatoes, raw
corn, &c. After a time, the master would send word to her to come in,
promising he would not sell us. But, at length, persons came who
agreed to give the prices he set on us. His wife, with much to be done,
prevailed on him not to sell me; but he sold my brother, who was a
little boy. My mother, frantic with grief, resisted their taking her child
away. She was beaten, and held down; she fainted; and, when she came
to herself, her boy was gone. She made much outcry, for which the
master tied her up to a peach-tree in the yard, and flogged her.
Another of my brothers was sold to Mr. Tyler, Dewan's Neck,
Pasquotank county. This man very much ill treated many colored boys.
One very cold day, he sent my brother out, naked and hungry, to find a
yoke of steers; the boy returned without finding them, when his master
flogged him, and sent him out again. A white lady, who lived near,
gave him food, and advised him to try again; he did so, but, it seems,
again without success. He piled up a heap of leaves, and laid himself
down in them, and died there. He was found through a flock of turkey
buzzards hovering over him; these birds had pulled his eyes out.
My young master and I used to play together; there was but two days'
difference in our ages. My old master always said he would give me to
him. When he died, all the colored people were divided amongst his
children, and I fell to young master; his name was James Grandy. I was
then about eight years old. When I became old enough to be taken
away from my mother and put to field work, I was hired out for the
year, by auction, at the court house, every January: this is the common
practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under age.
This continued till my master and myself were twenty-one years old.

The first who hired me was Mr. Kemp, who used me pretty well; he
gave me plenty to eat, and sufficient clothing.
The next was old Jemmy Coates, a severe man. Because I could not
learn his way of hilling corn, he flogged me naked with a severe whip,
made of a very tough sapling; this lapped round me at each stroke; the
point of it at last entered my belly and broke off, leaving an inch and a
half outside. I was not aware of it until, on going to work again, it hurt
my inside very much, when, on looking down, I saw it sticking out of
my body. I pulled it out, and the blood spouted after it. The wound
festered, and discharged very much at the time, and hurt me for years
after.
In being hired out, sometimes the slave gets a good home, and
sometimes a bad one: when he gets a good one, he dreads to see
January come; when he has a bad one, the year seems five times as long
as it is.
I was next with Mr. Enoch Sawyer, of Camden county. My business
was to keep ferry, and do other odd work. It was cruel living. We had
not near enough of either victuals or clothes. I was half starved for half
my time. I have often ground the husks of Indian corn over again in a
hand-mill, for the chance of getting something