3,626; according to the census of 1840.]

On the 30th of May, 1803, I was ushered into the world; but I did not
begin to see the rising of its dark clouds, nor fancy how they might be
broken and dispersed, until some time afterwards. My infancy was spent
upon the floor, in a rough cradle, or sometimes in my mother's arms. My
early boyhood in playing with the other boys and girls, colored and white,
in the yard, and occasionally doing such little matters of labor as one of
so young years could. I knew no difference between myself and the white
children; nor did they seem to know any in turn. Sometimes my master would
come out and give a biscuit to me, and another to one of his own white
boys; but I did not perceive the difference between us. I had no brothers
or sisters, but there were other colored families living in the same
kitchen, and the children playing in the same yard, with me and my mother.

When I was ten or eleven years old, my master set me regularly to cutting
wood, in the yard in the winter, and working in the garden in the summer.
And when I was fifteen years of age, he gave me the care of the pleasure
horses, and made me his carriage driver; but this did not exempt me from
other labor, especially in the summer. Early in the morning I used to take
his three horses to the plantation, and turn them into the pasture to
graze, and myself into the cotton or cornfield, with a hoe in my hand, to
work through the day; and after sunset I would take these horses back to
the city, a distance of three miles, feed them, and then attend to any
other business my master or any of his family had for me to do, until bed
time, when with my blanket in my hand, I would go into the dining room to
rest through the night. The next day the same round of labor would be
repeated, unless some of the family wished to ride out, in which case I
must be on hand with the horses to wait upon them, and in the meantime
work about the yard. On Sunday I had to drive to Church twice, which with