20 - My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglasss remarkable journey unfolds in these pages, showcasing not only his extraordinary rise against overwhelming odds but also serving as a powerful testament to the noble aspirations of the American anti-slavery movement. (Introduction)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nineteen of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Runaway
Plot New Year's Thoughts and Meditations, again bought by Freeland.
No ambition to be a slave, kindness, no compensation for slavery,

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incipient steps toward escape, considerations leading there too irreconcilable hostility
to slavery. Solemn vow taken, plan devoted to the slaves.
Colombian orator scheme gains favor despite pro slavery preaching, danger

(00:47):
of discovery, skill of slaveholders in reading the minds of
their slaves, suspicion and coercion. Hymns with double meaning value
in dollars of our company, preliminary consultation passwords, conflicts of
hope and fear, difficulties to be overcome, ignorance of geography,
survey of imaginary difficulties effect on our minds. Patrick Henry

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Sandy becomes a dreamer. Route to the North, laid out
objections considered frauds practiced on Freeman passes, written anxieties as
the time drew near, dread of failure, appeals to comrades,
strange presentiment, coincidence, betrayal discovered, the manner of arresting us,

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resistance made by Henry Harris, its effect the unique speech
of Missus Freeland, our sad procession to prison, brutal jeers
by the multitude along the road, passes eaten the denial,
Sandy too well loved to be suspected, dragged behind horses,
the jail a relief, a new set of tormentors, slave traders,

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John Charles and Henry released. The author left alone in prison,
he is taken out and sent to Baltimore. I am
now at the beginning of the year eighteen thirty six,
the time favorable for serious thoughts. The mind naturally occupies
itself with the mysteries of life in all its phases,
the ideal, the real, and the actual. Sober people look

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both ways at the beginning of the year, surveying the
errors of the past and providing against possible errors in
the future. I too, was thus exercised. I had little
pleasure in retrospect, and the prospect was not very brilliant.
Notwithstanding thought I the many resolutions and prayers I have
made in behalf of freedom. I am this first day

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of the year eighteen thirty six, still a slave, still
wandering in the depths of spirit, devouring thralldom. My faculties
and powers of body and soul are not my own,
but are the property of a fellow mortal in no
sense superior to me, except that he has the physical
power to compel me to be own, owned and controlled

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by him by the combined physical force of the community.
I am his slave, a slave for life. With thoughts
like these, I was perplexed and chafed. They rendered me
gloomy and disconsolate. The anguish of my mind may not
be written. At the close of the year eighteen thirty five,
mister Freeland, my temporary master, had bought me of Captain

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Thomas All for the year eighteen thirty six. His pompanus
and securing my services would have been flattering to my
vanity had I been ambitious to win the reputation of
being a valuable slave. Even as it was, I felt
a slight degree of complacency at the circumstance. It showed
he was as well pleased with me as a slave

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as I was with him as a master. I've already
intimated my regard for mister Freeland, and I may say
here in addressing northern readers, where there is no selfish
motive for speaking in praise of a slaveholder. Mister Freeland
was a man of many excellent qualities, and to me
quite preferable to any master I ever had. But the

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kindness of the slave master only gilds the chain of
slavery and detracts nothing from its weight or power. The
thought that men are made for other and better uses
than slavery thrives best under the gentle treatment of a
kind master. But the grim visiege of slavery can assume
no smiles which can fascinate the partially enlightened slave into

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a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of the desirableness of liberty.
I was not through the first month of this my
second year with the kind and gentlemanly mister Freeland, before
I was earnestly considering and devising plans for gaining that freedom, which,
when I was but a mere child I had ascertained
to be the natural and inborn right of every member

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of the human family. The desire for this freedom had
been benumbed while I was under the brutalizing dominion of Covey,
and it had been postponed and rendered inoperative by my
truly pleasant Sunday school engagements with my friends during the
year eighteen thirty five at mister Friedland's. It had, however,

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never entirely subsided. I hated slavery always, and the desire
for freedom only needed a favorable breeze to fand it
into a blaze at any moment. The thought of only
being a creature of the present and the past troubled me,
and I longed to have a future, a future with
hope in it. To be shut up entirely to the

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past and present is abhorrent to the human mind. It
is to the soul, whose life and happiness is unceasing
progress what the prison is to the body, a blight
and mildew, a hell of horrors. The dawning of this
another year awakened me from my temporary slumber and roused
into life my latent but long cherished as for freedom.

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I was now not only ashamed to be contented in slavery,
but ashamed to seem to be contented, and in my
present favorable condition under the mild row of mister f
I am not sure that some kind reader will not
condemn me for being over ambitious and greatly wanting in
proper humility when I say the truth that I now

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drove for me all thoughts of making the best of
my lot, and welcomed only such thoughts as led me
away from the house of bondage. The intense desire now
felt to be free, quickened by my present favorable circumstances,
brought me to the determination to act, as well as
to think and speak accordingly. At the beginning of this year,

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eighteen thirty six, I took upon me a solemn vow
that the year which had now dawned upon me, should
not close without witnessing an earnest attempt on my part
to gain my liberty. This thou only bound me to
make my escape individually. But the year spent with mister
Freeland had attached me as with hooks of steel to

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my brother slaves. The most affectionate and confiding friendship existed
between us, and I felt it my duty to give
them an opportunity to share in my virtuous determination. By
frankly disclosing to them my plans and purposes. Toward Henry
and John Harris, I felt a friendship as strong as
one man can feel for another, for I could have

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died with and for them to them. Therefore, with a
suitable degree of caution, I began to disclose my sentiments
and plans, sounding them the while on the subject of
running away. Provided a good chance should offer. I scarcely
need tell the reader that I did my very best
to imbue the minds of my dear friends with my

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own views and feelings. Thoroughly awakened now and with a
definite vow upon me, all my little reading which had
any bearing on the subject of human rights was rendered
available in my communications with my friends that to me
jem of a book, The Colombian Orator, with its eloquent
orations and spicy dialogues denouncing oppression and slavery, telling of

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what had been dared, done and suffered by men to
obtain the inestimable boon of liberty, was still fresh in
my memory and whirled into the ranks of my speech
with the aptitude of well trained soldiers going through the drill.
The fact is I here began my public speaking. I
canvassed with Henry and John the subject of slavery, and

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dashed against it the condemning brand of God's eternal justice,
which it every hour violates. My fellow servants were neither indifferent, dull,
nor in apt. Our feelings were more alike than our opinions. All, however,
were ready to act when a feasible plan should be proposed.
He know us how the thing is to be done,

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said they, and all else is clear. We were all,
except Sandy, quite free from slaveholding priestcraft. It was in
vain that we had been taught from the pulpit at
Saint Michael's the duty of obedience to our masters. To
recognize God as the author of our enslavement, to regard

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running away an offense alike against God and man, to
deem our enslavement a merciful and beneficial arrangement, To esteem
our condition in this country of paradise to that from
which we had been snatched in Africa. To consider our
hard hands and dark color as God's mark of displeasure,
and as pointing us out as the proper subjects of slavery.

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That the relation of master and slave was one of
reciprocal benefits. That our work was not more serviceable to
our masters than our master's thinking was serviceable to us.
I say it was in vain that the pulpit of
Saint Michael had constantly inculcated these plausible doctrines, Nature laughed

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them to scorn. For my own part, I had now
become altogether too big for my chains. Father Lawson's solemn
words of what I ought to be and might be
in the providence of God had not fallen dead on
my soul. I was fast verging toward manhood, and the
prophecies of my childhood were still unfulfilled. The thought that

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year after year had passed away, and my best resolutions
to run away had failed and faded, that I was
still a slave, and a slave too, with chances for
gaining my freedom diminished and still diminishing, was not a
matter to be slept over easily, nor did I easily
sleep over it. But here came a new trouble. Thoughts

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and purposes so insndiar as those I now cherished could
not agitate the mind long without danger of making themselves
manifest to scrutinizing and unfriendly beholders. I had reason to
fear that my stable face might prove altogether too transparent
for the safe concealment of my hazardous enterprise plans of

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greater moment have leaked through stone walls and revealed their projectors.
But here was no stone wall to hide my purpose.
I would have given my poor tell tale face for
the immovable countenance of an Indian, for it was far
from being proof against the daily searching glances of those
with whom I met. It is the interest and business

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of slaveholders to study human nature with a view to
practical results, and many of them attain astonishing proficiency in
discerning the thoughts and emotions of slaves. They have to
deal not with earth, wood or stone, but with men,
and by every regard they have for their safety and prosperity,
they must study to know the material on which they

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are at work. So much intellect as the slaveholder has
around him requires watching. Their safety depends upon their vigilance.
Conscious of the injustice and wrong they are every hour perpetrating,
and knowing what they themselves would do if made the
victims of such wrongs, they are looking out for the

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first signs of the dread retribution of justice. They watch
therefore with skilled and practiced eyes, and have learned to
read with great accuracy the state of mind and heart
of the slave through his sable face. These uneasy sinners
are quick to inquire into the matter where the slave

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is concerned. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstraction, sullenness, and indifference, indeed,
any mood out of the common way, afford ground for
suspicion and inquiry. Often relying on their superior position and wisdom,
they hector and torture the slave into a confession by

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affecting to know the truth of their accusations. You've got
the devil in you, say they and we will whip
him out of you. I've often been put us to
the torture on bear suspicion. This system has its disadvantages
as well as their opposite. The slave is sometimes whipped
into the confession of offenses which he never committed. The

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reader will see that the good old rule a man
is to be held innocent until proved to be guilty
does not hold good on the slave. Plantation, suspicion, and
torture are the approved methods of getting at the truth here.
It was necessary for me, therefore, to keep a watch
over my deportment lest the enemy should get the better

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of me. But with all our caution and studied reserve,
I'm not sure that mister Freeland did not suspect that
all was not right with us. It did seem that
he watched us more after the plan of escape had
been conceived and discussed amongst us. Men seldom see themselves

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as others see them, and while to ourselves everything connected
with our contemplated escape appeared concealed, mister Freeland may have,
with the peculiar prescience of a slaveholder, mastered the huge
thought which was disturbing our peace in slavery. I am
the more inclined to think that he suspected us, because

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prudent as we were. As I now look back, I
can see that we did many silly things, very well
calculated to awaken suspicion. We were at times remarkably buoyant,
singing hymns and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in
their tone as if we had reached a land of
freedom and safety. A keen observer might have detected in

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our repeated singing of Oh, Canaan, Sweet Canaan, I am
bound for the land of Canaan. Something more than a
hope of reaching heav We meant to reach the north,
and the North was our Canaan, I thought, I heard
them say, there were lions in the way. I don't
expect to stay much longer here. Run to Jesus, shun

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the danger. I don't expect to stay much longer here
was a favorite heir and had a double meaning in
the lips of some, and meant the expectation of a
speedy summons to a world of spirits. But in the
lips of our company it simply meant a speedy pilgrimage
toward a free state and deliverance from all the evils

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and dangers of slavery. I had succeeded in winning to
my what slaveholders would call wicked scheme. A company of
five young men, the very flower of the neighborhood, each
one of whom would have commanded one thousand dollars in
the home market and New Orleans they would have brought
fifteen hundred dollars apiece, and perhaps more. The names of

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our party were as follows, Henry H. Harris, John Harris,
brother to Henry, Sandy Jenkins of Root Memory, Charles Roberts,
and Henry Bailey. I was the youngest, but one of
the party. I had, however, the advantage of them all
inexperience and in a knowledge of letters. This gave me
great influence over them. Perhaps not one of them, left

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to himself would have dreamed of escape as a possible thing.
Not one of them was self moved in the matter.
They all wanted to be free, but the serious thought
of running away had not entered into their minds until
I won them to the undertaking. They all were tolerably
well off for slaves, and had dim hopes of being
set free someday by their masters. If anyone is to

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blame for disturbing the quiet of the slaves and slave
masters of the neighborhood of Saint Michael's, I am the man.
I claimed to be the instigator of the high crime,
as the slaveholders regarded, And I kept life in it
until life could be kept in it no longer, pending
the time of our contemplated departure out of our Egypt.

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We met often by night and on every Sunday. At
these meetings we talked the matter over, told our hopes
and fears, and the difficulties discovered or imagined, and like
men of sense, we counted the cost of the enterprise
to which we were committing ourselves. These meetings must have
resembled on a small scale the meetings of revolutionary conspirators.

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In their primary condition. We were plotting against our so
called lawful rulers, with this difference that we sought our
own good and not the harm of our enemies. We
did not seek to overthrow them, but to escape from them.
As for mister Freeland, we all liked him and would
have gladly remained with him as freemen. Liberty was our aim,

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and we had now come to think that we had
a right to liberty against every obstacle, even against the
lives of our enslavers. We had several words expressive of
things important to us, which we understood, but which even
if distinctly heard by an outsider, would convey no certain meaning.
I have reasons for suppressing these passwords, which the reader

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will easily divine. I hated the secrecy. But where slavery
is powerful and liberty is weak, the latter is driven
to concealment or to destruction. The prospect was not always
a bright one. At times we were almost tempted to
abandon the enterprise and to get back to that comparative
peace of mind which even a man under the gallows

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might feel when all hope of escape had vanished. Quiet
bondage was felt to be better than the doubts, fears,
and uncertainties which now so sadly perplexed and disturbed us.
The infirmities of humanity generally were represented in our little band.
We were confident, bold and determined at times and again doubting,

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timid and wavering, whistling like the boy in the grave
yard to keep away the spirits. To look at the
map and observe the proximity of eastern Shore Maryland to
Delaware and Pennsylvania. It may seem to the reader quite
absurd to regard the proposed escape as a formidable undertaking,
But to understand someone has said a man must stand

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under The real distance was great enough, but the imagined
distance was, to our ignorance, even greater. Every slaveholder seeks
to impress his slave with a belief in the boundlessness
of slave territory and of his own almost illimitable power.
We all have beggin indistinct notions of the geography of

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the country. The distance, however, is not the chief trouble.
The nearer are the lines of a slave state and
the borders of a free one. The greater the peril
hired kidnappers infest these borders. Then too, we knew that
merely reaching a freestyle did not free us, that wherever caught,
we could be returned to slavery. We could see no

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spot on this side the ocean where we could be free.
We had heard of Canada, the Rio caanaan of the
American bondmen, simply as a country to which the wild
goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter
to escape the heat of summer, but not as the
home of man. I knew something of theology, but nothing

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of geography. I really did not at that time note
that there was a state of New York or a
state of Massachusetts. I'd heard of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New
Jersey and all the southern states, but was ignorant of
the free states. Generally, New York City was our northern limit.
And to go there and to be forever harassed, with
the liability of being hunted down and returned to slavery,

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with the certainty of being treated ten times worse than
we had ever been treated before, was a prospect far
from delightful, and it might well cause some hesitation about
engaging in the enterprise. The case sometimes to our excited vision, stood. Thus,
at every gate through which we had to pass, we
saw a watchman, at every ferry, a guard, on every

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bridge a sentinel, and in every wood a patrol or
slave hunter. We were hemmed in. On every side. The
good to be sought and the evil to be shunned
were flung in the balance, and weighed against each other.
On the one hand, there stood slavery, a stern reality,
glaring frightfully upon us, with the blood of millions in
his polluted skirts, terrible to behold, greedily devouring our hard

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earnings and feeding himself upon our fledge. Here was the
evil from which to escape. On the other hand, far away,
back in the hazy distance, where all forms seen but shadows,
under the flickering light of the North Star, behind some
craggy hill or snow covered mountain, stood a doubtful freedom,
half frozen, beckoning us to her icy domain. This was

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the good to be sought. The inequality was as great
as that between certainty and uncertainty. This in itself was
enough to stagger us. But when we came to survey
the untrodden road and conjecture the many possible difficulties. We
were appalled, and at times, as I have said, were
upon the point of giving over the struggle altogether. The

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reader can have little idea of the phantoms of trouble
which flit in such circumstances before the uneducated mind of
the slave. Upon either side we saw grim death, assuming
a variety of horrid shapes. Now it was starvation, causing us,
in a strange and friendless land to eat our own flesh.

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Now we were contending with the waves, for our journey
was in part by water, and were drowned. Now we
were hunted by dogs, and overtaken and torn to pieces
by their merciless fangs. We were stung by scorpions, chased
by wild beasts, bidden by snakes, and, worst of all,
after having succeeded in swimming rivers, encountering wild bees, sleeping

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in the woods, suffering hungry, cold, heat, and nakedness, suppose
ourselves to be overtaken by hired kidnappers, who, in the
name of the law and for their thrice accursed reward,
whil perchance bower upon us, kill some, wound others, and
capture all. This dark picture drawn by ignorance and fear,
at times greatly shook our determination, and not unfrequently caused

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us to rather bear those ills we had than to
fly to others which we knew not of. I'm not
disposed to magnify this circumstance in my experience, and yet
I think I shall seem to be so disposed to
the reader. No man can tell the intense agony which
is felt by the slave when waving on the point

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of making his escape. All that he has is at stake,
and even that which he has not is at stake.
Also the life which he has may be lost, and
a liberty which he seeks may not be gained. Patrick Henry,
to a listening Senate, through by his magic eloquence, and
ready to stand by him, in as bold as flights,

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could say, give me liberty, or give me death. And
this saying was a sublime one, even for a free man.
But incomparably more sublime is the same sentiment when practically
asserted by men accustomed to the lash and chain, men
whose sensibilities must have become more or less deadened by
their bondage with us. It was a doubtful liberty at

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best that we sought, and a certain lingering death in
the rice swamps and sugar fields if we failed. Life
is not lightly regarded by men of sane minds. It
is precious, alike to the pauper and to the prince,
to the slave, and to his master. And yet I
believe there was not one among us who would not
rather have been shot down than pass away life in

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hopeless bondage. In the progress of our preparations, Sandy the
root Man became troubled. He began to have dreams, and
some of them were very distressing. One of these, which
happened on a Friday night, was to him of great
significant and I'm quite ready to confess that I felt
somewhat damp by myself, he said. I dreamed last night

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that I was roused from sleep by strange noises, like
the voices of a swarm of angry birds that caused
a roar as they passed, which fell upon my ear
like a coming gale over the tops of the trees.
Looking up to see what it could mean, said Sandy,
I saw you, Frederick, in the claws of a huge bird,
surrounded by a large number of birds of all colors

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and sizes. These were all picking at you while you
with your arms seemed to be trying to protect your eyes.
Passing over me. The birds flew in a southwesterly direction,
and I watched them until they were clean out of sight.
Now I saw this as plainly as I now see you.
And further, Honey, watched the Friday night dream. There is

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something in it shows you bone day is. Indeed, Honey,
I confess I did not like this dream, but I
threw off conces learned about it by attributing it to
the general excitement and perturbation consequent upon our contemplated plan
of escape. I could not, however, shake off its effect.

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At once. I felt that it boded me no good.
Sandy was unusually emphatic and oracular, and his manner had
much to do with the impression made upon me. The
plan of escape, which I recommended, and to which my
comrades assented, was to take a large canoe owned by
mister Hamilton, and on the Saturday night previous to the

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Easter holidays, launched out into the Chesapeake Bay and paddle
for its head a distance of seventy miles with all
our might. Our course on reaching this point was to
turn the canoe adrift and bend our steps towards the
north Star till we reached a free state. There were
several objections to this plan. One was the danger from

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gales on the bay. In rough weather, the waters of
the Chesapeake are much agitated, and there is danger in
a canoe of being swamped the waves. Another objection was
that the canoe would soon be missed, the absent persons
would at once be suspected of having taken it, and
we should be pursued by some of the fast sailing
bay craft out of Saint Michael's. Then again, if we

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reached the head of the bay and turn the canoe adrift,
she might prove a guide to our track and bring
the land hunters after us. These and other objections were
set aside by the stronger ones, which could be urged
against every other plan that could then be suggested. On
the water, we had a chance of being regarded as
fishermen in the service of a master. On the other hand,

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by taking the land route through the counties adjoining Delaware,
we should be subjected to all manner of interruptions and
many very disagreeable questions, which might give us serious trouble.
Any white man is authorized to stop a man of
color on any road, and examine him and arrest him
if he so desires. By this arrangement, many abuses considered

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such event by a slas occur. Cases have been known
where freemen have been called upon to show their free
papers by a pack of Ruffians, and on the presentation
of the papers, the Ruffians have torn them up and
seized their victim and sold them to a life of
endless bondage. The week before our intended start, I wrote

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a pass for each of our party giving them permission
to visit Baltimore during the Easter holidays. The past ran
after this manner. This is to certify that I, the undersigned,
have given the bearer, my servant John full liberty to
go to Baltimore to spend the Easter holidays w h
near Saint Michael's, Talbot County, Maryland. Although we were not

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going to Baltimore, and were intending to land east of
North Point, in the direction where I had seen the
Philadelphia steamers go, these passes might be made useful to
us in the lower part of the Bay while steering
toward Baltimore. These were, not, however, to be shown by
us until all other answers failed to satisfy the inquirer.

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We were all fully alive to the importance of being
calm and self possessed when accosted. If accosted, we should be,
and we, more times than one rehearse to each other
how we should behave in the hour of trial. Those
were long, tedious days and nights. The suspense was painful
in the extreme. To balance probabilities where life and liberty

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hang on the result required steady nerves. I panted for action,
and was glad when the day at the close of
which we were to start dawned upon us. Sleeping the
night before was out of the question. I probably felt
more deeply than any of my companions because I was
the instigator of the movement. The responsibility of the whole

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enterprise rested on my shoulders. The glory of success and
the shame and confusion of failure could not be matters
of indifference to me. Our food was prepared, our clothes
were packed up. We were all ready to go and
impatient for Saturday morning. Consider that the last morning of
our bondage. I cannot describe the tempest un tumult of

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my brain that morning. The reader will please to bear
in mind that in a slave state, an unsuccessful runaway
is not only subjected to cruel torture and sold away
to the far South, but he is frequently execrated by
the other slaves. He is charged with making the condition
of the other slaves intolerable by laying them all under
the suspicion of their masters, subjecting them to greater vigilance,

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and imposing greater limitations on their privileges. I dreaded murmurs
from this quarter. It is difficult, too for a slave
master to believe that slaves escaping have not been aided
in their flight by someone of their fellow slaves, When
therefore a slave is missing. Every slave on the place
is closely examined as to his knowledge of the undertaking,

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and they are sometimes even torture to make them disclose
what they are suspected of knowing of such escape. Our
anxiety grew more and more intense as the time of
our intended departure for the North drew. Not it was
truly felt to be a matter of life and death
with us, and we fully intended to fight as well
as run, if necessity should occur for that extremity. But

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the trial hour was not yet come. It was easy
to resolve, but not so easy to act. I expected
there might be some drawing back at the last. It
was natural that there should be. Therefore, during the intervening
time I lost no opportunity to explain away difficulties, to
remove doubts, to dispel fears, and to inspire all with firmness.

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It was too late to look back, and now was
the time to go forward. Like most of the men,
we had done the talking part of our work long
and well, and the time had come to act as
if we were in earnest and meant to be as
true in action as in words. I did not forget
to appeal to the pride of my comrades by telling
them that if, after having solemnly promised to go as

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they had done, they now failed to make the attempt,
they would in effect brand themselves with cowardice, and might
as well sit down, fold their arms, and acknowledge themselves
as fit only to be slaves. This detestable character all
were unwilling to assume. Every man except Sandy, He, much
to our regret, withdrew stood firm and at our last

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meeting we pledged ourselves afresh and in the most solemn manner,
but at the time appointed we would certainly start on
our long journey for our free country. This meeting was
in the middle of the week, at the end of
which we were to start. Early that morning, we went
as usual to the field, but with hearts that beat
quickly and anxiously. Anyone intimately acquainted with us might have

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seen that all was not well with us, and that
some monster lingered in our thoughts. Our work that morning
was the same as it had been for several days past,
drawing out and spreading manure. While thus engaged, I had
a sudden presentiment which flashed upon me like lightning in
a dark night, revealing to the lonely traveler the gulf

(32:57):
before and the enemy behind. I instantly turned to Sandy Jenkins,
who was near me, and said to him, Sandy, we
are betrayed. Something has just told me so. I felt
as sure of it as if the officers were there
in sight. Sandy said, man, that is strange, but I
feel just as you do. If my mother, then long

(33:18):
in her grave, had appeared before me and told me
that we were betrayed. I could not at that moment
have felt more certain of the fact. In a few
minutes after this, the long, low and distant notes of
the horn summoned us from the field to breakfast. I
felt as one may be supposed to feel before being
led forth to be executed for some great offense. I

(33:39):
wanted to know breakfast, but I went with the other
slaves toward the house for form's sake. My feelings were
not disturbed as to the right of running away. On
that point, I had no trouble whatever. My anxiety arose
from a sense of the consequences of failure. In thirty
minutes after that, vivid presentiment came the apprehended crash. On
reaching the house for bread fist and glancing my eye

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toward the lane gate, the worst was at once made known.
The lane gate of mister Freeland's house is nearly a
half a mile from the door, and much shaded by
the heavy wood which boarded the main road. I was, however,
able to descry four white men and two colored men approaching.
The white men were on horseback, and the colored men
were walking behind, and seemed to be tied. It is

(34:24):
all over with us, thought I, we are surely betrayed.
I now became composed or at least comparatively so, and
calmly awaited the result. I watched the ill omened company
till I saw them enter the gate. Successful flight was impossible,
and I made up my mind to stand and meet
the evil, whatever it might be, for I was now
not without a slight hope that things might turn differently

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from what I at first expected. In a few moments
in came mister William Hamilton, writing very rapidly and evidently
much excited. He was in the habit of writing very slowly,
and was seldom known to gather up his horse. This
time his horse was nearly at full speed, causing the
dust to roll thick behind him. Mister Hamilton, though one

(35:07):
of the most resolute men in the whole neighborhood, was
nevertheless a remarkably mild spoken man, and even when greatly excited,
his language was cool and circumspect. He came to the
door and inquired if mister Freeland was in. I told
him that mister Freeland was at the barn. Off the
gentleman rode toward the barn with unwonted speed. Mary the

(35:28):
cook was at a loss to note what was the matter,
and I did not profess any skill in making her understand,
I knew she would have united as readily as anyone
in cursing me for bringing trouble into the family. So
I held my peace, leaving matters to develop themselves without
my assistance. In a few moments, mister Hamilton and mister
Freeland came down from the barn to the house, and

(35:50):
just as they made their appearance in the front yard,
three men who proved to be constables came dashing into
the lane on horseback, as if summoned by a sign.
Acquiring quick work. A few seconds brought them into the
front yard, where they hastily dismounted and tied their horses.
This done, they joined mister Freeland and mister Hamilton, who

(36:12):
were standing a short distance from the kitchen. A few
moments were spent as if in consulting how to proceed,
and then the whole party walked up to the kitchen door.
There was now no one in the kitchen but myself
and John Harris, Henry and Sandy were yet at the barn.
Mister Freeland came inside the kitchen door and with an
agitated voice, called me by name and told me to
come forward, that there were some gentlemen who wished to

(36:35):
see me. I stepped toward them at the door and
asked what they wanted. When the constables grabbed me and
told me that I had better not resist, that I
had been in a scrape, or was said to have
been in one, that they were merely going to take
me where I could be examined, That they were going
to carry me to Saint Michael's to have me brought
before my master. They further said that in case the

(36:56):
evidence against me was not true, I should be acquitted out, firmly, tied,
and completely at the mercy of my captives. Resistance was idle.
They were five in number, armed to the very teeth.
When they had secured me, they next turned to John Harris,
and in a few moments in tying him as firmly
as they had already tied me. They next turned toward
Henry Harris, who had now returned from the barn. Crossed

(37:19):
your hands, said the constables to Henry. I won't, said Henry,
in a voice so firm and clear, and in a
manner so determined as for a moment to arrest all proceedings.
Won't you cross your hands? Said Tom Graham, The constable. No,
I won't, said Henry, with increasing emphasis. Mister Hamilton, mister Freeland,
and the officers now came near to Henry. Two of

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the constables drew out their shining pistols and swore by
the name of God that he should cross his hands
or they would shoot him down. Each of these hired
ruffians now cocked their pistols and, with fingers apparently on
the triggers, presented their deadly weapons to the breast of
the unarmed slaves, saying at the same time, if he
did not cross his hands, they would blow his darned

(38:01):
heart out of him. Shoot shoot me, said Henry. You
can't kill me. But once shoot, shoot and be durned.
I won't be tied. This, the brave fellow said, in
a voice as defiant and heroic in its tone as
was the language itself. And at the moment of saying this,
with the pistols at his very breast, he quickly raised

(38:21):
his arms and dashed them from the puny hands of
his assassins. The weapons flying in opposite directions now came
the struggle. All hands now rushed upon the brave fellow,
and after beating him for some time, they succeeded in
overpowering and tying him. Henry put me to shame. He
fought and fought bravely. John and I had made no resistance.

(38:42):
The fact is, I never see much use in fighting
unless there is a reasonable probability of whipping somebody. Yet
there was something almost providential in the resistance made by
the gallant Henry. Before that resistance, every souliv us would
have been hurried off to the far south, just a
moment previous to the trouble with Henry, Hamilton mildly said,
and this gave me the unmistakable clue to the cause

(39:04):
of our arrest. Perhaps we had now better make a
search for those protections which we understand Frederick has written
for himself and the rest. Had these passes been found,
they would have been point blank proof against us, and
would have confirmed all the statements of our betrayer. Thanks
to the resistance of Henry, the excitement produced by the
scuffle drew all attention in that direction. I succeeded in

(39:26):
flinging my pass unobserved, into the fire. The confusion attendant
upon the scuffle and the apprehension of further trouble, Perhaps
that our captors to forego for the present, and he
searched for those protections which Frederick was said to have
written for his companions. So we were not yet convicted
of the purpose to run away, and it was evident

(39:47):
that there was some doubt on the part of all
whether we had been guilty of such a purpose. Just
as we were all completely tied and about ready to
start towards Saint Michael's and thence to jail. Missus Bessy Freeland,
mother to William, who was very much attached after the
southern fashion, to Henry and John, they having been reared
from childhood in her house, came to the kitchen door

(40:08):
with her hands full of biscuits, for we had not
had time to take our breakfast that morning, and divided
them between Henry and John. This time the lady made
the following parting, addressed to me, looking and pointing her
bony finger at me. You devil, you yellow devil. It
was you that put it into the heads of Henry
and John to run away. Before you, you long legged,

(40:29):
yellow devil, Henry and John would never have thought of
running away. I gave the lady a look which called
forth a scream of mingled wrath and terror, as she
slammed the kitchen door and went in, leaving me with
the rest in hands. As harsh as her own broken voice.
Could the kind reader have been quietly riding along the
main road to or from easton that morning, as eye

(40:50):
would have met a painful sight, he would have seen
five young men, guilty of no crime save that of
preferring liberty to a life of bondage, drawn along the
public highway, firmly bound together, tramping through dust and heat,
barefooted and bareheaded, fastened to three strong horses, whose riders
were armed to the teeth with pistols and daggers, on
their way to prison like felons, and suffering every possible

(41:12):
insult from the crowds of idle, vulgar people, who clustered
around and heartlessly made their failure occasion for all manner
of ribaldry in sport. As I looked upon this crowd
of vile persons, and saw myself and friends thus assailed
and persecuted, I could not help seeing the fulfillment of
Sandy's dream. I was in the hands of moral vultures,

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and firmly held in their sharp talents, and was being
hurried away toward easton in a southeasterly direction, amid the
jeers of new birds of the same feather through every
neighborhood we passed. It seemed to me, and this shows
the good understanding between the slaveholders and their allies, that
everybody we met knew the cause of our arrest, and
were out awaiting, how passing by, to feast their vindictive

(41:57):
eyes on our misery and to gloat over our ruin.
Some said I ought to be hanged, and others I
ought to be burnt, others I ought to have the
hide taken from my back. While no one gave us
a kind word or sympathizing look, except the poor slaves
who were lifting their heavy hose, and who cautiously glanced
at us through the post and rare of fences behind

(42:18):
which they were at work. Our sufferings that morning can
be more easily imagined than described. Our hopes were all
blasted at a blow. The cruel injustice, the victorious crime,
and the helplessness of innocence led me to ask, in
my ignorance and weakness, where now is the God of
justice and mercy? And why have these wicked men the
power thus to trample upon our rights and to insult

(42:41):
our feelings. And yet in the next moment came the
consoling thought, the day of the oppressor will come. At last,
of one thing, I could be glad. Not one of
my dear friends upon whom I had brought this great calamity,
either by word or look, reproached me for having led
them into it. We were a band of brothers, dearer
to each other than now. The thought which gave us

(43:03):
the most pain was the probable separation which would now
take place in case we were sold off to the
far south, as we were likely to be. While the
constables were looking forward, Henry and I, being fastened together,
could occasionally exchange a word without being observed by the
kidnappers who had us in charge. What shall I do
with my past? Said Henry? Eat it with your biscuit,

(43:23):
said I. It won't do to tear it up. We
were now near Saint Michael's. The direction concerning the passes
was passed around and executed. Owned nothing, said I own nothing,
was passed around and enjoined and assentitude. Our confidence in
each other was unshaken, and we were quite resolved to
succeed or failed together as much after the calamity which

(43:43):
had befallen us as before. On reaching Saint Michael's we
underwent a sort of examination at my master's store, and
it was evident to my mind that Master Thomas suspected
the truthfulness of the evidence upon which they had acted
in arresting us, and that he only affected to some
extent the positiveness with which he asserted our guilt. There

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was nothing said by any of our company which could
in any manner prejudice our cause. And there was hope
yet that we should be able to return to our homes,
if for nothing else, at least to find out the
guilty man or woman who had betrayed us. To this end,
we all denied that we have been guilty of intended flight.
Master Thomas said that the evidence he had of our
intention to run away was strong enough to hang us

(44:26):
in a case of murder, But said I the cases
are not equal. If murder were committed, someone must have
committed it. The thing is done. In our case, nothing
has been done. We have not run away. Where's the
evidence against us? We were quietly at our work. I
talked thus with unusual freedom to bring out the evidence
against us, For we all wanted, above all things to

(44:46):
know the guilty wretch who had betrayed us, that we
might have something tangible upon which to pour our execrations.
From something which dropped in the course of the talk.
It appeared that there was but one witness against us,
and that that witness could not produced. Master Thomas would
not tell us who his informant was, but we suspected,
and suspected one person. Only several circumstances seemed to point

(45:09):
Sandy out as our betrayal. His entire knowledge of our plans,
his participation in them, is withdrawal from us, his dream,
and his simultaneous presentiment that we were betrayed. The taking
us and the leaving him were calculated to turn suspicion
toward him, And yet we could not suspect him. We
all loved him too well to think it possible that
he could have betrayed us, So we rolled the guilt

(45:31):
on other shoulders. We were literally dragged that morning behind
horses a distance of fifteen miles and placed in the
Eastern jail. We were glad to reach the end of
our journey, for our pathway had been the scene of
insult and mortification, such as the power of public opinion,
that it is hard even for the innocent to feel
the happy consolations of innocence when they fall under the

(45:54):
maledictions of this power. How could we regard ourselves as
in the right when all about us denounced us as
criminals and had the power and the disposition to treat
us as such. In jail, we were placed under the
care of mister Joseph Graham, the sheriff of the county.
Henry and John and myself were placed in one room,

(46:14):
and Henry Bailey and Charles Roberts in another by themselves.
This separation was intended to deprive us of the advantage
of concert and to prevent trouble in jail. Once shut up,
a new set of tormentors came upon us, a swarm
of imps in human shape, the slave traders, deputies slave traders,
and agents of slave traders that gather in every country

(46:35):
town of the state, watching for chances to buy human flesh.
As buzzards eat caring flocked in upon us to ascertain
if our masters had placed us in jail to be sold.
Such a set of debased and villainous creeches I never
saw before, and hoped never to see again. I felt
myself surrounded as by a pack of fiends fresh from perdition.

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They laughed, leered, and grinned us, saying, ah, boys, we've
got you, haven't we. So you were about to make
your escape? Where were you going to? After taunting us
and jeering at us as long as they liked, they
one by one subjected us to an examination with a
view to ascertain our value, feeling our arms and legs,
and shaking us by their shoulders to see if we

(47:18):
were sound and healthy, impudently asking us how we would
like to have them for masters. To such questions, we
work very much, to their annoyance, quite dumb, disdaining to
answer them. For one, I detested the whiskey bloated gamblers
in human flesh, and I believe I was as much
detested by them. In turn, One fellow told me if
he had me, he would cut the devil out of

(47:40):
me pretty quick. These negro buyers are very offensive to
the genteel Southern Christian public. They are looked upon in
respectable Maryland society is necessary but detestable characters. As a class.
They are hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation.
Their ears are made quite familiar with the agonizing cry

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of outraged and woe smitten humanity. Their eyes are forever
open to human misery. They welcome in desecrated affections, in
salted virtue and blasted hopes. They have grown intimate with
vice and blood. They gloat over the wildest illustrations of
their soul damming and earth polluting business and our moral pests. Yes,
they are legitimate fruit of slavery, and it is a

(48:24):
puzzle to make out a case of greater villainy for
them than for the slaveholders who make such a class possible.
They are mere hucksters of the surplus slave produce of
Maryland and Virginia, coarse, cruel and swaggering bullies whose very
breathing is of blasphemy and blood. Aside from these slave
buyers who infested the Prism from time to time, our

(48:46):
quarters were much more comfortable than we had any right
to expect they would be. Our allowance of food was
small and coarse, but our room was the best in
the jail, neat and spacious, and with nothing about it
necessarily reminding us of being imprisoned. But its heavy locks
and bolts and the black iron lattice work at the windows.
We were prisoners of state compared with most slaves who

(49:06):
are put into that Easton jail. But the place was
not one of contentment. Bolts, bars and grated windows are
not acceptable to freedom loving people of any color. The suspense, too,
was painful. Every step on the stairway was listened to
in the hope that the comer would cast a ray
of light on our fate. We would have given the
hair off our heads for half a dozen words with

(49:28):
one of the waiters in Saul Lowe's hotel. Such waiders
were in the way of hearing at the table the
probable course of things. We could see them fitting about
in their white jackets in front of this hotel, but
could speak to none of them. Soon after the holidays
were over, contrary to all our expectations, Messrs Hamilton and
Freeland came up to Easton, not to make a bargain

(49:51):
with the Georgia traders, nor to send us up to
Austin Wold folk, as is usual in the case of
runaway slaves, but to release Charles Henry Harris, Henry Bailey
and John Harris from prison, and this too without the
infliction of a single blow, I was now left entirely
alone in prison. The innocent had been taken and the
guilty left. My friends were separated from me, and apparently forever,

(50:15):
this circumstance caused me more pain than any other incident
connected with our capture and imprisonment. Thirty nine lashes on
my naked and bleeding back would have been joyfully born
in preference to this separation from these, the friends of
my youth. And yet I could not but feel that
I was the victim of something like justice. Why should
these young men who were let into this scheme by

(50:37):
me suffer as much as the instigator? I felt glad
that they were released from prison and from the dread
prospect of a life or death. I should rather say
in the Rise swamps, it is due to the noble
Henry to say that he seemed almost as reluctant to
leave the prison with me in it as he was
to be tied and dragged to prison. But he and
the rest knew that we should, in all the likelihoods

(50:59):
of the case, be said up in the event of
being sold, And since we were now completely in the
hands of our owners, we all concluded it would be
best to go peaceably home. Not until this last separation,
dear reader, had I touched those profounder depths of desolation,
which it is the lot of slaves often to reach.
I was solitary in the world, and alone within the

(51:19):
walls of a stone prison, left to a fate of
life long misery. I had hoped and expected much for
months before, but my hopes and expectations were now withered
and blasted. The ever dreaded slave life in Georgia, Louisiana,
and Alabama, from which an escape is next to impossible,
now in my loneliness stared me in the face. The
possibility of ever becoming anything but an abject slave, a

(51:42):
mere machine in the hands of an owner, had now fled,
and it seemed to me it had fled forever. A
life of living death, beset with the innumerable horrors of
the cotton field and the sugar plantation, seemed to be
my doom. The fiends who rushed into the prison when
we were first put there, continued to visit me and
to ply me with questions and with their tantalizing remarks.

(52:05):
I was insulted, but helpless, keenly alive to the demands
of justice and liberty, but with no means of asserting them.
To talk to those imps about justice and mercy would
have been as absurd as to reason with bears and tigers,
lead and steal are the only arguments that they understand.
After remaining in this life of misery and despair about
a week, which by the way, seemed a month, Master Thomas,

(52:27):
very much to my surprise and greatly to my relief,
came to the prison and took me out for the purpose,
as he said, of sending me to Alabama with a
friend of his who would emancipate me at the end
of eight years. I was glad enough to get out
of prison, but I had no faith in the story
that this friend of Captain Augg would emancipate me at
the end of the time indicated. Besides, I never had

(52:49):
heard of his having a friend in Alabama, and I
took the announcement simply as an easy and comfortable method
of shipping me off to the far South. There was
a little scandal, too, connected with the idea of one
Christian selling another to the Georgia traders. While it was
deemed every way proper for them to sell to others.
I thought this friend in Alabama was an invention to

(53:10):
meet this difficulty. For Master Thomas was quite jealous of
his Christian reputation, however unconcerned he might be about his
real Christian character in these remarks. However, it is possible
that I do Master thomas auld injustice. He certainly did
not exhaust his power upon me in the case, but
acted upon the whole very generously considering the nature of

(53:31):
my offense. He had the power and the provocation to
send me without reserve into the very everglades of Florida,
beyond the remotest hope of emancipation, and his refusal to
exercise that power must be set down to his credit.
After lingering about Saint Michael's a few days and no
friend from Alabama making his appearance to take me there,

(53:52):
Master Thomas decided to send me back again to Baltimore
to live with his brother Hugh, with whom he was
now at peace. Possibly he became so by his profession
of religion. At the camp meeting in the Bayside, Master
Thomas told me that he wished me to go to
Baltimore and learn a trade, and that if I behaved
myself properly. He would emancipate me at twenty five. Thanks

(54:14):
for this one beam of hope in the future. The
promise had but one fault. It seemed too good to
be true. In of chapter nineteen