The History of Mary Prince | Page 4

next." The
slaves could say nothing to comfort us; they could only weep and
lament with us. When I left my dear little brothers and the house in
which I had been brought up, I thought my heart would burst.
Our mother, weeping as she went, called me away with the children
Hannah and Dinah, and we took the road that led to Hamble Town,
which we reached about four o'clock in the afternoon. We followed my
mother to the market-place, where she placed us in a row against a
large house, with our backs to the wall and our arms folded across our
breasts. I, as the eldest, stood first, Hannah next to me, then Dinah; and
our mother stood beside, crying over us. My heart throbbed with grief
and terror so violently, that I pressed my hands quite tightly across my
breast, but I could not keep it still, and it continued to leap as though it
would burst out of my body. But who cared for that? Did one of the
many by-standers, who were looking at us so carelessly, think of the
pain that wrung the hearts of the negro woman and her young ones? No,
no! They were not all bad, I dare say; but slavery hardens white
people's hearts towards the blacks; and many of them were not slow to
make their remarks upon us aloud, without regard to our grief--though
their light words fell like cayenne on the fresh wounds of our hearts.
Oh those white people have small hearts who can only feel for
themselves.
At length the vendue master, who was to offer us for sale like sheep or
cattle, arrived, and asked my mother which was the eldest. She said
nothing, but pointed to me. He took me by the hand, and led me out
into the middle of the street, and, turning me slowly round, exposed me
to the view of those who attended the vendue. I was soon surrounded
by strange men, who examined and handled me in the same manner
that a butcher would a calf or a lamb he was about to purchase, and
who talked about my shape and size in like words--as if I could no
more understand their meaning than the dumb beasts. I was then put up
to sale. The bidding commenced at a few pounds, and gradually rose to
fifty-seven,[1] when I was knocked down to the highest bidder; and the
people who stood by said that I had fetched a great sum for so young a
slave.

[Footnote 1: Bermuda currency; about £38 sterling.]
I then saw my sisters led forth, and sold to different owners; so that we
had not the sad satisfaction of being partners in bondage. When the sale
was over, my mother hugged and kissed us, and mourned over us,
begging of us to keep up a good heart, and do our duty to our new
masters. It was a sad parting; one went one way, one another, and our
poor mammy went home with nothing.[2]
[Footnote 2: Let the reader compare the above affecting account, taken
down from the mouth of this negro woman, with the following
description of a vendue of slaves at the Cape of Good Hope, published
by me in 1826, from the letter of a friend,--and mark their similarity in
several characteristic circumstances. The resemblance is easily
accounted for: slavery wherever it prevails produces similar
effects.--"Having heard that there was to be a sale of cattle, farm stock,
&c. by auction, at a Veld-Cornet's in the vicinity, we halted our
waggon one day for the purpose of procuring a fresh spann of oxen.
Among the stock of the farm sold, was a female slave and her three
children. The two eldest children were girls, the one about thirteen
years of age, and the other about eleven; the youngest was a boy. The
whole family were exhibited together, but they were sold separately,
and to different purchasers. The farmers examined them as if they had
been so many head of cattle. While the sale was going on, the mother
and her children were exhibited on a table, that they might be seen by
the company, which was very large. There could not have been a finer
subject for an able painter than this unhappy group. The tears, the
anxiety, the anguish of the mother, while she met the gaze of the
multitude, eyed the different countenances of the bidders, or cast a
heart-rending look upon the children; and the simplicity and touching
sorrow of the young ones, while they clung to their distracted parent,
wiping their eyes, and half concealing their faces,--contrasted with the
marked insensibility and jocular countenances of the spectators and
purchasers,--furnished a striking commentary on the miseries of slavery,
and