The Fugitive Blacksmith | Page 5

well
acquainted with you. I am familiar with many passages in your
history--all that part of your history extending from the time when, a
sturdy blacksmith, you were running away from Maryland oppression,
down to the present, when you are the successor of my lamented friend,
Theodore S. Wright. Let me add that my acquaintance with you has
inspired me with a high regard for your wisdom and integrity."
Give us a few more such men in America, and slavery will soon be
numbered among the things that were. A few men who will not only
have the moral courage to aim the severing blow at the chattel relation
between master and slave, without parley, palliation or compromise;
but who have also the christian fidelity to brave public scorn and
contumely, to seize a coloured man by the hand, and elevate him to the
position from whence the avarice and oppression of the whites have
degraded him. These men have the right view of the subject. They see
that in every case where the relation between master and slave is
broken, slavery is weakened, and that every coloured man elevated,
becomes a step in the ladder upon which his whole people are to ascend.
They would not have us accept of some modified form of liberty, while
the old mischief working chattel relation remains unbroken, untouched
and unabrogated.
J.W.C. PENNINGTON.
_13, Princes Square, London, August 15th_, 1849.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I
.
My birth and parentage--The treatment of Slaves generally in Maryland
1

CHAPTER II
.
The flight 14

CHAPTER III
.
A dreary night in the woods--Critical situation the next day 31

CHAPTER IV
.
The good woman of the toll-gate directs me to W.W.--My cordial
reception by him 40

CHAPTER V
.
Seven months' residence in the family of J.K., a member of the Society
of Friends in Chester County, Pennsylvania--Removal to New
York--Becomes a convert to religion--Becomes a teacher 49

CHAPTER VI
.
Some account of the family I left in slavery--Proposal to purchase
myself and parents--How met by my old master 58

CHAPTER VII
.
The feeding, clothing, and religious instruction of the slaves in the part
of Maryland where I lived 65
APPENDIX 74

THE FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH.

CHAPTER I
.
MY BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.--THE TREATMENT OF SLAVES
GENERALLY IN MARYLAND.
I was born in the state of Maryland, which is one of the smallest and
most northern of the slave-holding states; the products of this state are
wheat, rye, Indian corn, tobacco, with some hemp, flax, &c. By looking
at the map, it will be seen that Maryland, like Virginia her neighbour, is
divided by the Chesapeake Bay into eastern and western shores. My
birthplace was on the eastern shore, where there are seven or eight
small counties; the farms are small, and tobacco is mostly raised.
At an early period in the history of Maryland, her lands began to be
exhausted by the bad cultivation peculiar to slave states; and hence she
soon commenced the business of breeding slaves for the more southern
states. This has given an enormity to slavery, in Maryland, differing
from that which attaches to the system in Louisiana, and equalled by
none of the kind, except Virginia and Kentucky, and not by either of
these in extent.
My parents did not both belong to the same owner: my father belonged
to a man named ----; my mother belonged to a man named ----. This not
only made me a slave, but made me the slave of him to whom my
mother belonged; as the primary law of slavery is, that the child shall
follow the condition of the mother.
When I was about four years of age, my mother, an older brother and
myself, were given to a son of my master, who had studied for the
medical profession, but who had now married wealthy, and was about
to settle as a wheat planter in Washington County, on the western shore.
This began the first of our family troubles that I knew anything about,
as it occasioned a separation between my mother and the only two
children she then had, and my father, to a distance of about two
hundred miles. But this separation did not continue long; my father
being a valuable slave, my master was glad to purchase him.
About this time, I began to feel another evil of slavery--I mean the want
of parental care and attention. My parents were not able to give any

attention to their children during the day. I often suffered much from
hunger and other similar causes. To estimate the sad state of a slave
child, you must look at it as a helpless human being thrown upon the
world without the benefit of its natural guardians.