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 me. After my master died, my mistress sold a
number of her slaves from their families and friends--but not me. She sold
several children from their parents--but my children were with me still.
She sold two husbands from their wives--but I was still with mine. She
sold one wife from her husband--but mine had not been sold from me. The
master of my wife, Mr. Smith, had separated members of families by
sale--but not of mine. With me and my house, the tenderer tendrils of the
heart still clung to where the vine had entwined; pleasant was its shade
and delicious its fruit to our taste, though we knew, and what is more, we
_felt_ that we were slaves. But all around I could see where the vine had
been torn down, and its bleeding branches told of vanished joys, and of
new wrought sorrows, such as, slave though I was, had never entered into
my practical experience.