The Fugitive Blacksmith | Page 8

is one I will mention, because it will serve
to show the state of feeling that existed between us, and how it served
to widen the already open breach.
I was one day shoeing a horse in the shop yard. I had been stooping for
some time under the weight of the horse, which was large, and was
very tired; meanwhile, my master had taken his position on a little hill
just in front of me, and stood leaning back on his cane, with his hat
drawn ever his eyes. I put down the horse's foot, and straightened

myself up to rest a moment, and without knowing that he was there, my
eye caught his. This threw him into a panic of rage; he would have it
that I was watching him. "What are you rolling your white eyes at me
for, you lazy rascal?" He came down upon me with his cane, and laid
on over my shoulders, arms, and legs, about a dozen severe blows, so
that my limbs and flesh were sore for several weeks; and then after
several other offensive epithets, left me.
This affair my mother saw from her cottage, which was near; I being
one of the oldest sons of my parents, our family was now mortified to
the lowest degree. I had always aimed to be trustworthy; and feeling a
high degree of mechanical pride, I had aimed to do my work with
dispatch and skill, my blacksmith's pride and taste was one thing that
had reconciled me so long to remain a slave. I sought to distinguish
myself in the finer branches of the business by invention and finish; I
frequently tried my hand at making guns and pistols, putting blades in
penknives, making fancy hammers, hatchets, sword-canes, &c., &c.
Besides I used to assist my father at night in making straw-hats and
willow-baskets, by which means we supplied our family with little
articles of food, clothing and luxury, which slaves in the mildest form
of the system never get from the master; but after this, I found that my
mechanic's pleasure and pride were gone. I thought of nothing but the
family disgrace under which we were smarting, and how to get out of
it.
Perhaps I may as well extend this note a little. The reader will observe
that I have not said much about my master's cruel treatment; I have
aimed rather to shew the cruelties incident to the system. I have no
disposition to attempt to convict him of having been one of the most
cruel masters--that would not be true--his prevailing temper was kind,
but he was a perpetualist. He was opposed to emancipation; thought
free negroes a great nuisance, and was, as respects discipline, a
thorough slaveholder. He would not tolerate a look or a word from a
slave like insubordination. He would suppress it at once, and at any risk.
When he thought it necessary to secure unqualified obedience, he
would strike a slave with any weapon, flog him on the bare back, and
sell. And this was the kind of discipline he also empowered his
overseers and sons to use.
I have seen children go from our plantations to join the chained-gang

on its way from Washington to Louisiana; and I have seen men and
women flogged--I have seen the overseers strike a man with a
hay-fork--nay more, men have been maimed by shooting! Some dispute
arose one morning between the overseer and one of the farm hands,
when the former made at the slave with a hickory club; the slave taking
to his heels, started for the woods; as he was crossing the yard, the
overseer turned, snatched his gun which was near, and fired at the
flying slave, lodging several shots in the calf of one leg. The poor
fellow continued his flight, and got into the woods; but he was in so
much pain that he was compelled to come out in the evening, and give
himself up to his master, thinking he would not allow him to be
punished as he had been shot. He was locked up that night; the next
morning the overseer was allowed to tie him up and flog him; his
master then took his instruments and picked the shot out of his leg, and
told him, it served him just right.
My master had a deeply pious and exemplary slave, an elderly man,
who one day had a misunderstanding with the overseer, when the latter
attempted to flog him. He fled to the woods; it was noon; at evening he
came home orderly. The next morning, my master, taking one of his
sons with him, a rope and cowhide in his hand, led the poor old man
away into the stable; tied him up, and ordered the