Half a Century Part 4

They were the sons of her bachelor uncle, who had had a pa.s.sion for Liza, one of his father's slaves, a tall, handsome quadroon, who rejected his suit and was in love with Jo, a fellow slave. To punish both, the young master had Jo tied up and lashed until he fainted, while Liza was held so that she must witness the torture, until insensibility came to her relief. This was done three times, when Jo was sold, and Liza herself bound to the whipping-post, and lashed until she yielded, and became the mother of those two beautiful boys.

"But," added her biographer, "she never smiled after Jo was sold, took consumption and died when her youngest boy was two months old. They were the beautifulest boys I ever laid eyes on, and uncle sot great store by them. He couldn't bear to have them out of his sight, and always said he would give them to me. He would have done it, I know, if he had made a will; but he took sick sudden, raving crazy, and never got his senses for one minute. It often took three men to hold him on the bed. He thought he saw Jo and Liza, and died cursing and raving."

She paused to wipe away a tear, and added: "The boys were sold down South. Maybe your way, up North, is best, after all. I never knew a cruel master die happy. They are sure to be killed, or die dreadful!"

She had an old, rheumatic cook, Martha, who seldom left her bas.e.m.e.nt kitchen, except when she went to her Baptist meeting, but for hours and hours she crooned heart-breaking melodies of that hope within her, of a better and a happier world.

She had a severe attack of acute inflammation of the eyelids, which forcibly closed her eyes, and kept them closed; then she refused to work.

Her wages, one hundred and seventy-five dollars a year, were paid to her owner, a woman, and these went on; so her employer sent for her owner, and I, as an abolitionist, was summoned to the conference, that I might learn to pity the sorrows of mistresses, and understand the deceitfulness of slaves.

The injured owner sat in the shaded parlor, in a blue-black satin dress, that might almost have stood upright without a.s.sistance from the flesh or bones inside; with the dress was combined a ma.s.s of lace and jewelry that represented a large amount of money, and the ma.s.s as it sat there, and as I recall it, has made costly attire odious.

This bedizzoned martyr, this costumer's advertis.e.m.e.nt, sat and fanned as she recounted her grievances. Her entire allowance for personal expenses, was the wages of nine women, and her husband would not give her another dollar. They, knowing her necessities, were so ungrateful!--n.o.body could think how ungrateful; but in all her sorrows, Martha was her crowning grief. She had had two husbands, and had behaved so badly when the first was sold. Then, every time one of her thirteen children were disposed of, she "did take on so;" n.o.body could imagine "how she took on!"

Once, the gentle mistress had been compelled to send her to the workhouse and have her whipped by the constable; and that cost fifty cents; but really, this martyr and her husband had grown weary of flogging Martha. One hated so to send a servant to the public whipping-post; it looked like cruelty--did cruelty lacerate the feelings of refined people, and it was so ungrateful in Martha, and all the rest of them, to torture this fine lady in this rough way.

As to Martha's ingrat.i.tude, there could be no doubt; for, to this, our hostess testified, and called me to witness, that she had sent her a cup of tea every day since she had complained of being sick; yes, "a cup of tea with sugar in it," and yet the old wretch had not gone to work.

When they had finished the recital of their grievances they came down to business. The owner would remit two week's wages; after that it was the business of the employer to pay them, and see that they were earned. If it were necessary now to send Martha to the whipping-post, the lady in satin would pay the fifty cents; but for any future flogging, the lady in lawn must be responsible to the City of Louisville.

We adjourned to the kitchen where old Martha stood before her judge, clutching the table with her hard hands, trembling in every limb, her eyelids swollen out like puff-b.a.l.l.s, and offensive from neglect, her white curls making a border to her red turban, receiving her sentence without a word. As a sheep before her shearers she was dumb, opening not her mouth. Those wrinkled, old lips, from which I had heard few sounds, save those of prayer and praise, were closed by a cruelty perfectly incomprehensible in its unconscious debas.e.m.e.nt. Our hostess was a leading member of the Fourth St. M.E. Church, the other feminine fiend a Presbyterian.

I promised the Lord then and there, that for life, it should be my work to bring "deliverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound," but all I could do for Martha, was to give her such medical treatment as would restore her sight and save her from the whipping-post, and this I did.

While I lived on that dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground, a man was beaten to death in an open shed, on the corner of two public streets, where the sound of the blows, the curses of his two tormentors, and his shrieks and unavailing prayers for mercy were continued a whole forenoon, and sent the complaining air shuddering to the ears of thousands, not one of whom offered any help.

A brown-haired girl, Maria, the educated, refined daughter of a Kentucky farmer, was lashed by her brutal purchaser, once, and again and again for chast.i.ty, where hundreds who heard the blows and shrieks knew the cause. From that house she was taken to the work-house and scourged by the public executioner, backed by the whole force of the United States government. Oh! G.o.d! Can this nation ever, ever be forgiven for the blood of her innocent children?

Pa.s.sing a crowded church on a Sabbath afternoon, I stepped in, when the preacher was descanting on the power of religion, and, in ill.u.s.tration, he told of two wicked young men in that state, who were drinking and gambling on Sunday morning, when one said:

"I can lick the religion out of any n.i.g.g.e.r."

The other would bet one hundred dollars that he had a n.i.g.g.e.r out of whom the religion could not be licked. The bet was taken and they adjourned to a yard. This unique n.i.g.g.e.r was summoned, and proved to be a poor old man. His master informed him he had a bet on him, and the other party commanded him to "curse Jesus?" on pain of being flogged until he did.

The old saint dropped on his knees before his master, and plead for mercy, saying:

"Ma.s.sa! Ma.s.sa! I cannot curse Jesus! Jesus die for me! He die for you, Ma.s.sa. I no curse him; I no curse Jesus!"

The master began to repent. In babyhood he had ridden on those old bowed shoulders, then stalwart and firm, and he proposed to draw the bet, but the other wanted sport and would win the money. Oh! the horrible details that that preacher gave of that day's sport, of the las.h.i.+ngs, and faintings, and revivals, with washes of strong brine, the prayers for mercy, and the recurring moan!

"I no curse Jesus, Ma.s.sa! I no curse Jesus; Jesus die for me, Ma.s.sa; I die for Jesus?"

As the sun went down Jesus took him, and his merciful master had sold a worthless n.i.g.g.e.r for one hundred dollars. But, the only point which the preacher made, was that one in favor of religion. When it could so support a n.i.g.g.e.r, what might it not do for one of the superior race?

For months I saw every day a boy who could not have been more than ten years old, but who seemed to be eight, and who wore an iron collar with four projections, and a hoop or bail up over his head. This had been put on him for the crime of running away; and was kept on to prevent a repet.i.tion of that crime. The master, who thus secured his property, was an Elder in the Second Presbyterian church, and led the choir.

The princ.i.p.al Baptist preacher owned and hired out one hundred slaves; took them himself to the public mart, and acted as auctioneer in disposing of their services. The time at which this was done, was in the Christmas holidays, or rather the last day of the year, when the slaves'

annual week of respite ended.

A female member of the Fourth St. Methodist church was threatened with discipline, for nailing her cook to the fence by the ear with a ten-penny nail. The preacher in charge witnessed the punishment from a back window of his residence. Hundreds of others witnessed it, called by the shrieks of the victim; and his reverence protested, on the ground that such scenes were calculated to injure the church.

CHAPTER X.

KENTUCKY CONTEMPT FOR LABOR.--AGE, 23, 24.

To a white woman in Louisville, work was a dire disgrace, and one Sabbath four of us sat suffering from thirst, with the pump across the street, when I learned that for me to go for a pitcher of water, would be so great a disgrace to the house as to demand my instant expulsion.

I grew tired doing nothing. My husband's business did not prosper, and I went to a dressmaker and asked for work. She was a New England woman, and after some shrewd questions, exclaimed:

"My dear child, go home to your mother! What does your husband mean?

Does he not know you would be insulted at every step if you work for a living? Go home--go home to your mother!"

I was homesick, and the kindness of the voice and eyes made me cry. I told her I could not leave my husband.

"Then let him support you, or send you home until he can! I have seen too many like you go to destruction here. Go home."

I said that I could never go to destruction, but she interrupted me:

"You know nothing about it. You are a mere baby. They all thought as you do. Go home to your mother!"

"But I never can go to destruction! No evil can befall me, for He that keepeth Israel slumbers not nor sleeps."

She concluded to give me work, but said:

"I will send it by a servant. Don't you come here."

I never thrust my anti-slavery opinions on any one, but every Southerner inquired concerning them, and I gave true answers. There were many boarders in the house, and one evening when there were eighteen men in the parlor, these questions brought on a warm discussion, when one said:

"You had better take care how you talk, or we will give you a coat of tar and feathers."

I agreed to accept such gratuitous suit, and a Mississippi planter, who seemed to realize the situation, said gently:

"Indeed, madam, it is not safe for you to talk as you do."

"When reminded of const.i.tutional guarantees for freedom of speech, and his enjoyment of it in my native State, he replied:

"There is no danger in Pennsylvania from freedom of speech, but if people were allowed to talk as you do here, it would overthrow our inst.i.tutions."

There were mobs in the air. The mayor closed a Sunday-school, on the ground that in it slaves were taught to read. The teacher, a New England woman, denied the charge, and claimed that only free children had been taught, while slaves were orally instructed to obey their masters, as good Presbyterians, who hoped to escape the worm that never dies. Her defense failed, but seemed to establish the right of free colored people to a knowledge of the alphabet, but there was no school for them, and I thought to establish one.

Jerry Wade, the Gault House barber, was a mulatto, who had bought himself and family, and acquired considerable real estate. In the back of one of his houses, lived his son with a wife and little daughter. We rented the front, and mother sent me furniture. This was highly genteel, for it gave us the appearance of owning slaves, and Olivia, young Wade's wife, represented herself as my slave, to bring her and her child security. As a free negro, she labored under many disadvantages, so begged me to claim her.

In this house I started my school, and there were no lack of pupils whose parents were able and willing to pay for their tuition, but ruffians stood before the house and hooted at the "n.i.g.g.e.r school."

Threatening letters were sent me, and Wade was notified that his house would be burned or sacked, if he permitted its use for such purpose. In one day my pupils were all withdrawn.