Three Years in Europe | Page 4

bestowed by her dehumanized master upon her beloved son.
After having been hired for a short time to the captain of the steam-boat Otto, William was finally sold to Captain Enoch Price for 650 dollars. That the quickness and intelligence of William rendered him very valuable as a slave, is favoured by the evidence of Enoch Price himself, who states that he was offered 2000 dollars for Sanford (as he was called), in New Orleans. William was strongly urged by his new mistress to marry. To facilitate this object, she even went so far as to purchase a girl for whom she fancied he had an affection. He himself, however, had secretly resolved never to enter into such a connexion while in slavery, knowing that marriage, in the true and honourable sense of the term, could not exist among slaves. Notwithstanding the multitude of petty offences for which a slave is severely punished, it is singular that one crime--bigamy--is visited upon a white with severity, while no slave has ever yet been tried for it. In fact, the man is allowed to form connections with as many women, and the women with as many men, as they please.
At St. Louis, William was employed as coachman to Mr. Price; but when that gentleman subsequently took his family up the river to Cincinnati, Sanford acted as appointed steward. While lying off this city, the long-looked-for opportunity of escape presented itself; and on the 1st of January, 1834--he being then almost twenty years of age--succeeded in getting from the steamer to the wharf, and thence to the woods, where he lay concealed until the shades of night had set in, when he again commenced his journey northwards. While with Dr. Young, a nephew of that gentleman, whose christian name was William, came into the family: the slave was, therefore, denuded of the name of William, and thenceforth called Sanford. This deprivation of his original name he had ever regarded as an indignity, and having now gained his freedom he resumed his original name; and as there was no one by whom he could be addressed by it, he exultingly enjoyed the first-fruits of his freedom by calling himself aloud by his old name "William!" After passing through a variety of painful vicissitudes, on the eighth day he found himself destitute of pecuniary means, and unable, from severe illness, to pursue his journey. In that condition he was discovered by a venerable member of the Society of Friends, who placed him in a covered waggon and took him to his own house. There he remained about fifteen days, and by the kind treatment of his host and hostess, who were what in America are called "Thompsonians," he was restored to health, and supplied with the means of pursuing his journey. The name of this, his first kind benefactor, was "Wells Brown." As William had risen from the degradation of a slave to the dignity of a man, it was expedient that he should follow the customs of other men, and adopt a second name. His venerable friend, therefore, bestowed upon him his own name, which, prefixed by his former designation, made him "William Wells Brown," a name that will live in history, while those of the men who claimed him as property would, were it not for his deeds, have been unknown beyond the town in which they lived. In nine days from the time he left Wells Brown's house, he arrived at Cleveland, in the State of Ohio, where he found he could remain comparatively safe from the pursuit of the man-stealer. Having obtained employment as a waiter, he remained in that city until the following spring, when he procured an engagement on board a steam-boat plying on Lake Erie. In that situation he was enabled, during seven months, to assist no less than sixty-nine slaves to escape to Canada. While a slave he had regarded the whites as the natural enemies of his race. It was, therefore, with no small pleasure that he discovered the existence of the salt of America, in the despised Abolitionists of the Northern States. He read with assiduity the writings of Benjamin Lundy, William Lloyd Garrison, and others; and after his own twenty years' experience of slavery, it is not surprising that he should have enthusiastically embraced the principles of "total and immediate emancipation," and "no union with slaveholders."
In proportion as his mind expanded under the more favourable circumstances in which he was placed, he became anxious, not merely for the redemption of his race from personal slavery, but for the moral elevation of those among them who were free. Finding that habits of intoxication were too prevalent amongst his coloured brethren, he, in conjunction with others, commenced a temperance reformation in their body. Such was the success