The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. | Page 6

sell me to be made free. She said she would; and
accordingly I arranged with her, and with the master of my wife, Mr.
Smith, already spoken of, for the latter to take my money[A] and buy
of her my freedom, as I could not legally purchase it, and as the laws
forbid emancipation except for "meritorious services." This done, Mr.
Smith endeavored to emancipate me formally, and to get my
manumission recorded; I tried also; but the court judged that I had done
nothing "meritorious," and so I remained, nominally only, the slave of
Mr. Smith for a year; when, feeling unsafe in that relation, I
accompanied him to New York whither he was going to purchase
goods, and was there regularly and formally made a freeman, and there
my manumission was recorded. I returned to my family in Raleigh and
endeavored to do by them as a freeman should. I had known what it
was to be a slave, and I knew what it was to be free.
[Footnote A: Legally, my money belonged to my mistress; and she
could have taken it and refused to grant me my freedom. But she was a
very kind woman for a slave owner; and she would under the
circumstances, scorn to do such a thing. I have known of slaves,

however, served in this way.]
But I am going too rapidly over my story. When the money was paid to
my mistress and the conveyance fairly made to Mr. Smith, I felt that I
was free. And a queer and a joyous feeling it is to one who has been a
slave. I cannot describe it, only it seemed as though I was in heaven. I
used to lie awake whole nights thinking of it. And oh, the strange
thoughts that passed through my soul, like so many rivers of light; deep
and rich were their waves as they rolled;--these were more to me than
sleep, more than soft slumber after long months of watching over the
decaying, fading frame of a friend, and the loved one laid to rest in the
dust. But I cannot describe my feelings to those who have never been
slaves; then why should I attempt it? He who has passed from spiritual
death to life, and received the witness within his soul that his sins are
forgiven, may possibly form some distant idea, like the ray of the
setting sun from the far off mountain top, of the emotions of an
emancipated slave. That opens heaven. To break the bonds of slavery,
opens up at once both earth and heaven. Neither can be truly seen by us
while we are slaves.
And now will the reader take with me a brief review of the road I had
trodden. I cannot here dwell upon its dark shades, though some of these
were black as the pencillings of midnight, but upon the light that had
followed my path from my infancy up, and had at length conducted me
quite out of the deep abyss of bondage. There is a hymn opening with
the following stanza, which very much expresses my feelings:
"When all thy mercies, Oh my God, My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost In wonder, love, and praise."
I had endured what a freeman would indeed call hard fare; but my lot,
on the whole, had been a favored one for a slave. It is known that there
is a wide difference in the situations of what are termed house servants,
and plantation hands. I, though sometimes employed upon the
plantation, belonged to the former, which is the favored class. My
master, too, was esteemed a kind and humane man; and altogether I
fared quite differently from many poor fellows whom it makes my
blood run chill to think of, confined to the plantation, with not enough

of food and that little of the coarsest kind, to satisfy the gnawings of
hunger,--compelled oftentimes, to hie away in the night-time, when
worn down with work, and steal, (if it be stealing,) and privately
devour such things as they can lay their hands upon,--made to feel the
rigors of bondage with no cessation,--torn away sometimes from the
few friends they love, friends doubly dear because they are few, and
transported to a climate where in a few hard years they die,--or at best
conducted heavily and sadly to their resting place under the sod, upon
their old master's plantation,--sometimes, perhaps, enlivening the air
with merriment, but a forced merriment, that comes from a stagnant or
a stupified heart. Such as this is the fate of the plantation slaves
generally, but such was not my lot. My way was comparatively light,
and what is better, it conducted to freedom. And my wife and children
were with