The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. | Page 3

do so by my master and mistress. I found, too, that they had
learned to read, while I was not permitted to have a book in my hand.
To be in the possession of anything written or printed, was regarded as
an offence. And then there was the fear that I might be sold away from
those who were dear to me, and conveyed to the far South. I had
learned that being a slave I was subject to this worst (to us) of all
calamities; and I knew of others in similar situations to myself, thus
sold away. My friends were not numerous; but in proportion as they
were few they were dear; and the thought that I might be separated
from them forever, was like that of having the heart wrenched from its
socket; while the idea of being conveyed to the far South, seemed
infinitely worse than the terrors of death. To know, also, that I was
never to consult my own will, but was, while I lived, to be entirely
under the control of another, was another state of mind hard for me to
bear. Indeed all things now made me feel, what I had before known
only in words, that I was a slave. Deep was this feeling, and it preyed
upon my heart like a never-dying worm. I saw no prospect that my
condition would ever be changed. Yet I used to plan in my mind from
day to day, and from night to night, how I might be free.
One day, while I was in this state of mind, my father gave me a small
basket of peaches. I sold them for thirty cents, which was the first
money I ever had in my life. Afterwards I won some marbles, and sold
them for sixty cents, and some weeks after Mr. Hog from Fayetteville,
came to visit my master, and on leaving gave me one dollar. After that
Mr. Bennahan from Orange county gave me a dollar, and a son of my

master fifty cents. These sums, and the hope that then entered my mind
of purchasing at some future time my freedom, made me long for
money; and plans for money-making took the principal possession of
my thoughts. At night I would steal away with my axe, get a load of
wood to cut for twenty-five cents, and the next morning hardly escape a
whipping for the offence. But I persevered until I had obtained twenty
dollars. Now I began to think seriously of becoming able to buy myself;
and cheered by this hope, I went on from one thing to another, laboring
"at dead of night," after the long weary day's toil for my master was
over, till I found I had collected one hundred dollars. This sum I kept
hid, first in one place and then in another, as I dare not put it out, for
fear I should lose it.
After this I lit upon a plan which proved of great advantage to me. My
father suggested a mode of preparing smoking tobacco, different from
any then or since employed. It had the double advantage of giving the
tobacco a peculiarly pleasant flavor, and of enabling me to manufacture
a good article out of a very indifferent material. I improved somewhat
upon his suggestion, and commenced the manufacture, doing as I have
before said, all my work in the night. The tobacco I put up in papers of
about a quarter of a pound each, and sold them at fifteen cents. But the
tobacco could not be smoked without a pipe, and as I had given the
former a flavor peculiarly grateful, it occurred to me that I might so
construct a pipe as to cool the smoke in passing through it, and thus
meet the wishes of those who are more fond of smoke than heat. This I
effected by means of a reed, which grows plentifully in that region; I
made a passage through the reed with a hot wire, polished it, and
attached a clay pipe to the end, so that the smoke should be cooled in
flowing through the stem like whiskey or rum in passing from the
boiler through the worm of the still. These pipes I sold at ten cents
apiece. In the early part of the night I would sell my tobacco and pipes,
and manufacture them in the latter part. As the Legislature sit in
Raleigh every year, I sold these articles considerably to the members,
so that I became known not only in the city, but in many parts of the
State, as a tobacconist.
Perceiving that I was getting along so well, I began, slave as I was, to

think about taking a wife. So I fixed my mind upon Miss