The Fugitive Blacksmith | Page 5

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. It is thrown into the world without a social circle to flee to for hope, shelter, comfort, or instruction. The social circle, with all its heaven-ordained blessings, is of the utmost importance to the _tender child_; but of this, the slave child, however tender and delicate, is robbed.
There is another source of evil to slave children, which I cannot forbear to mention here, as one which early embittered my life,--I mean the tyranny of the master's children. My master had two sons, about the ages and sizes of my older brother