Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom | Page 4

for
a white child, after having been kidnapped and sold into or re- duced to
slavery, in a part of the country where it is not known (as often is the
case), ever to recover its freedom.
I have myself conversed with several slaves who told me that their

parents were white and free; but that they were stolen away from them
and sold when quite young. As they could not tell their address, and
also as the parents did not know what had become of their lost and dear
little ones, of course all traces of each other were gone.
The following facts are sufficient to prove, that he who has the power,
and is inhuman enough to trample upon the sacred rights of the weak,
cares nothing for race or colour:--
In March, 1818, three ships arrived at New Orleans, bringing several
hundred German emi- grants from the province of Alsace, on the lower
Rhine. Among them were Daniel Muller and his two daughters,
Dorothea and Salome, whose mother had died on the passage. Soon
after his arrival, Muller, taking with him his two daughters, both young
children, went up the river to Attakapas parish, to work on the
plantation of John F. Miller. A few weeks later, his relatives, who had
remained at New Orleans, learned that he had died of the fever of the
country. They immediately sent for the two girls; but they had
disappeared, and the relatives, notwithstanding repeated and
persevering inquiries and researches, could find no traces of them.
They were at length given up for dead. Dorothea was never again heard
of; nor was any thing known of Salome from 1818 till 1843.
In the summer of that year, Madame Karl, a German woman who had
come over in the same ship with the Mullers, was passing through a
street in New Orleans, and accidentally saw Salome in a wine-shop,
belonging to Louis Belmonte, by whom she was held as a slave.
Madame Karl recognised her at once, and carried her to the house of
another German woman, Mrs. Schubert, who was Salome's cousin and
godmother, and who no sooner set eyes on her than, without having any
intimation that the discovery had been previously made, she un-
hesitatingly exclaimed, "My God! here is the long-lost Salome Muller."
The Law Reporter, in its account of this case, says:--
"As many of the German emigrants of 1818 as could be gathered
together were brought to the house of Mrs. Schubert, and every one of
the number who had any recollection of the little girl upon the passage,

or any acquaintance with her father and mother, immediately identified
the woman before them as the long-lost Salome Muller. By all these
witnesses, who appeared at the trial, the identity was fully established.
The family resemblance in every feature was declared to be so
remarkable, that some of the witnesses did not hesitate to say that they
should know her among ten thousand; that they were as certain the
plaintiff was Salome Muller, the daughter of Daniel and Dorothea
Muller, as of their own existence."
Among the witnesses who appeared in Court was the midwife who had
assisted at the birth of Salome. She testified to the existence of certain
peculiar marks upon the body of the child, which were found, exactly
as described, by the surgeons who were appointed by the Court to make
an examina- tion for the purpose.
There was no trace of African descent in any feature of Salome Muller.
She had long, straight, black hair, hazel eyes, thin lips, and a Roman
nose. The complexion of her face and neck was as dark as that of the
darkest brunette. It appears, however, that, during the twenty-five years
of her servitude, she had been exposed to the sun's rays in the hot
climate of Louisiana, with head and neck unsheltered, as is customary
with the female slaves, while labouring in the cotton or the sugar field.
Those parts of her person which had been shielded from the sun were
compara- tively white.
Belmonte, the pretended owner of the girl, had obtained possession of
her by an act of sale from John F. Miller, the planter in whose service
Salome's father died. This Miller was a man of consideration and
substance, owning large sugar estates, and bearing a high reputation for
honour and honesty, and for indulgent treatment of his slaves. It was
testified on the trial that he had said to Belmonte, a few weeks after the
sale of Salome, "that she was white, and had as much right to her
freedom as any one, and was only to be retained in slavery by care and
kind treatment." The broker who negotiated the sale from Miller to
Belmonte, in 1838, testified in Court that