short and spirited bidding I went at 1,025 dollars. Here the sale
policeman, whose business it was to take charge of the negroes sold until
bills were settled and papers made out, led me from the block outside the
crowd, and placing me by a cart, put on a pair of iron handcuffs; but
being well acquainted with me as a troublesome tricky negro, he put the
handcuff on my right wrist--took the other cuff through the cart wheel and
round the spoke, and then locked it on my left hand, so that if I did
start to run, I should carry the cart and all with me. Number twenty-one
was now called, and out came poor Reuben, and was placed under the hammer;
his weight was said to be two hundred pounds, his age thirty two. Poor
Sally, his wife, unable any longer to control her feelings, made her way
out of the slave pen, with her babe in her arms, followed by her five
small children, and she threw one of her arms around Reuben's neck; and
now commenced a scene that beggars all description. Her countenance,
though mild and beautiful, was by the keenest pain and sorrow distorted
and disfigured: her voice soft and gentle, accompanied with heart rending
gestures, appealed to the slave buyer in tones so very mournful, that I
thought it might have even melted cruelty itself to some pity--coming as
it did from a woman:--Oh! master, master! buy me and my children with my
husband--do, pray; and this was the only crime the poor woman committed
for which she suffered death on the spot. Her master stepped up from
behind her, and with the butt end of his carriage whip loaded with lead,
struck her a blow on the side of the head or temples, and she fell her
full length to the ground. Poor Reuben stooped to raise her up, but was
prevented by the jail policeman, who seized him by the neck and led him
over close to where I stood: and whilst he was in the act of selecting a
pair of handcuffs for Reuben, voice after voice was heard in the
crowd--she is dead! she is dead! But what was the effect of these words
upon Reuben--one of the most easy, good-tempered, innocent, inoffensive,
and, in his way, religious slaves that I ever knew--satisfied apparently