TO THE READER.


I have been solicited by very many friends, to give my narrative to the
public. Whatever my own judgment might be, I should yield to theirs. In
compliance, therefore, with this general request, and in the hope that
these pages may produce an impression favorable to my countrymen in
bondage; also that I may realize something from the sale of my work
towards the support of a numerous family, I have committed this
publication to press. It might have been made two or three, or even six
times larger, without diminishing from the interest of any one of its
pages--_indeed with an increased interest_--but the want of the pecuniary
means, and other considerations, have induced me to present it as here
seen. Should another edition be called for, and should my friends advise,
the work will then be extended to a greater length.

I have not, in this publication attempted or desired to argue anything. It
is only a simple narration of such facts connected with my own case, as I
thought would be most interesting and instructive to readers generally.
The facts will, I think, cast some light upon the policy of a slaveholding
community, and the effect on the minds of the more enlightened, the more
humane, and the _Christian_ portion of the southern people, of holding and
trading in the bodies and souls of men.