Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad/Chapter XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII.
Oneda Lackow was a servant in the house of her master on a plantation in Alabama, on the bank of the Mobile River. She seems to have been a favorite in the family, a sprightly, intelligent girl. Her features, hair and complexion would not have betrayed her as a slave except in a country where such slaves are common. Being a young lady’s maid she had many opportunities for improvement, and suffered few of the privations incident to the life of a slave. Instead of making her satisfied with her condition, the privileges she enjoyed served to make her feel more keenly the degradation of slavery, and she resolved, when not more than ten years of age, to escape to a land of freedom or die in the attempt. While she kept her purpose a secret, she availed herself of every opportunity to obtain information that would be useful when she should start for some free country. Her young mistress had been educated in Xew England, and she often heard her talk about the free States. Oneda learned to read, and was shrewd enough to conceal the fact from her mistress, therefore she had frequent opportunities to read papers and study a map of the United States that hung in the hall. When she was twelve or thirteen years old, her master brought home a young dog of the St. Bernard breed. His name was Prince, and he was trained to watch the premises. The first time she saw the great, clumsy looking puppy, she said to herself, (she told her plans to no one but herself,) “Now I’ll pet this dog and make him love me, and some day we will escape together;” so whenever opportunity favored she encouraged the children, both white and black, to tease Prince and abuse him, when she would come to the rescue, drive away the children, and then pet and feed him. She contrived to feed him such things as he liked best, and to play with him every day, and at night she would sometimes lie down by him on the piazza, lay her head on him and go to sleep, so that when Prince was two years old he would come or go at her bidding, though she was careful never to exercise her control of him in the presence of her master. When she was about fifteen years old she had laid down one evening on the porch with Prince, and happened to overhear a conversation between her master and a trader, and tp her astonishment she learned that her market value was more than any two of the strongest men on the plantation, and that in a year or two more her master expected to obtain a much larger price for her. She had never been treated harshly, yet the degradation of her condition was seldom absent from her thoughts. Not many days after the incident above related, her master and mistress went to Mobile to be absent a week. The next night, when all was still about the house, Oneda, with a little package containing a few articles of clothing and some food, went silently out of the house, and passing near to where Prince was lying, he followed her. She took a road leading west towards the Mobile & Ohio R. R., then striking a road running directly north, she turned into it and went on all night. Prince became excited, and tried in his mute way to induce her to turn back, though he seemed to be determined to go with her wherever she might go.
It would be interesting to follow this heroic girl through her long, lonely journey through Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky to the Ohio River, sometimes camping in woods and swamps in the daytime, and traveling by the north star in the night, occasionally finding a resting place in a negro’s cabin, hungry, weary and footsore. With no companion but her faithful dog, with no thought of turning back or of stopping short of freedom, she went on for three long months. She was often in great danger of being arrested and sent back, but, sometimes by the aid of her faithful escort, Prince, sometimes aided by negroes, and once or twice by kindhearted white women, she eluded her pursuers and arrived safely in Ohio, having been once captured and escaped again in Kentucky. Some of her adventures are worthy of notice, one or two of which I will relate.
She was near the mountain passes in Kentucky, having been traveling nearly eleven weeks, and was already near the Southern terminus of the U. G. R. R., when, driven by hunger, she went into a house in a lonely place, hoping to find it occupied by negroes, but was disappointed in finding a white woman. She noticed a singular expression in the woman’s countenance when Prince followed her into the house, but was too hungry and tired to think much of it. She asked for food, and the woman gave her something to eat, which she divided with Prince. The woman noticed her shoes, and said to her, “Your shoes are worn out,” and stepping into another room she said, “come in here and see if these will fit you. If you can wear them I’ll give them to you.” She went in, and as Prince was following her, the woman shut the door against him, locked the door, and put the key in her pocket; then taking a clothes line that hung in the room, she said, “you must stay here until my man comes home, and to make a sure thing of it, I must tie your feet and hands.” She was a great, coarse creature, and the child knew that resistance would avail nothing, while her voice and manner gave no encouragement to appeal for pity, but she thought of Prince and began calling him, screaming as loud as she could. Prince howled and scratched at the door, to which the woman paid no attention, but took hold of her and began arranging the cords. Oneda resisted with what strength she had, and they both fell upon the floor, when, with an awful yell, Prince came crashing through a window, breaking glass and sash, and seized the woman by the throat. The contest had been unequal before Prince took part in it, and it was no less so now. Prince had the advantage, and would have made an end of it at once, but Oneda said, “Easy, Prince, hold on there;” she then said to the woman, “Don’t resist, if you do he will kill you.” She had her enemy somewhat as Grant had Buckner at Donelson, terms “unconditional surrender.” “Now,” said she to the woman, “you must submit to me. If you are quiet while I use these cords it will be well for you, but if you stir up strife here Prince will interfere, and if he gets hold of you again I may not be able to restrain him. You must lie still while I say to you a few words, and first of all, let me tell you that the grip of Prince’s jaws on your neck is a pleasant pastime for you, compared with the suffering you propose to inflict on vie ; and the bondage that you must submit to will be but for a day, whereas you would bind me in slavery for life.” She then tied her hands behind her back and her feet together, and filled her mouth with an apron to prevent her from calling for help. “Now,” said she, “you are in bondage; I won’t ask you how you like it, but I ‘reckon’ you will be an abolitionist by the time your ‘man’ comes home.” She found on a shelf some crusts of bread and scraps of cold meat, which she wrapped in a newspaper that she found in the room, and started off. She had become weak from hunger and exposure, but her fears seemed to give her new strength. The road was lonely, passing ravines in the hills and woods; when she saw anybody in the road she hid herself until they had passed by and then ran forward, until late in the day, when she turned away from the road and sat down to rest. On opening her package of food to feed Prince, she saw at the head of an advertisement a wood cut, the figure of a slave escaping, and read as follows:
$450 REWARD.
Ran away from my plantation on the Mobile River, thirty miles from the city of Mobile, my slave girl, Oneda. She left on the 3d of June, 185—, and took with her a very large black dog. The girl is fifteen years of age, has long hair, brown eyes, and brunette complexion, rather less than medium size, but remarkably well formed, smiles when she speaks and shows a dimple in her left cheek, is very intelligent, and is supposed to be able to read. Any person who will capture and secure them in any jail south of the Ohio River, so that I can get them, will receive $300 reward, and if carefully handled so that the dog be not maimed noj the person of the girl disfigured, $150 will be added to the above reward.
The paper was directed to J. Tice, Piketon, Pike Co., Ky. “This explains it all,” said Oneda. “That will do, my brother, your powers of description are truly remarkable —‘is mpposed to be able to read’—of course she can read, and then, too, you appeal to the sordid instincts of a brutal slave catcher, to save me from physical suffering, while you, regardless of fraternal relationship, would degrade my humanity, and hold in base chattel slavery your own sister. I’ll take care of this,” said she, as she put the paper in her pocket. “Prince, my good fellow, come here—lie down by me and keep me warm. You are not my brother, Prince, you are only a dog. I’ve read somewhere that in Turkey they call Christians dogs; I wonder if dogs are ever Christians. Oh, Prince! what is the difference betwixt you and me?” Her soliloquy was cut short by Prince; he sprang up and took an attitude of defense, looked around at her with a low whine, and then was about to spring forward. She spoke to him and he came close to her side and licked her face; she looked up and saw a man not more than forty feet off, holding a blood-hound by a rope and a rifle on his shoulder. She sprang to her feet, and putting her hand on Prince’s head, she exclaimed, “Stand off, or Prince shall kill both you and your dog!” Making instant preparations to use his gun, he said, “We’ll talk this matter over. You see I have a right smart chance of advantage. Here are two of us and two dogs, and then you see, here is this gun. I have come after you, and I reckon you are a sensible girl, and will go along with me without compelling me to shoot that dog.” Oneda saw the point at once, and proposed to surrender, though not without conditions. After a long parley it was agreed that she should be taken to the Piketon jail, and that Prince should remain with her. He then untied his hound and sent him home. It was now almost dark, and as they went toward the town, which was not far off, she said, “This is Mr. Tice, I suppose.” “Yes,” said he, “Jake Tice, known from the Ohio River to the gulf as the great slave catcher. Ye see, this is the run-way, and if a slave runs off they just send the papers to me. If ye’d knowed that I reckon ye’d ’a gone the other side of the mountain.” “Have you just come from home?” asked Oneda. “Yes,” said Tice, “I jest ondid the old woman, and let loose her jaw, and wasn’t she mad, do you think? Wal, she wasn’t—that is, not much. She was mighty sorry for ye, but then ye see, there was the $300, and more, too, on conditions, ye know, and business has been mighty dull all summer. She said you had but just started, and I could follow your track with the old hound, ‘but you must tie him,’ said the old woman, ‘or somebody will get killed sure.’” “I was sorry,” said Oneda, “to have to do as I did, but I could not help it.” It was with great difficulty that she walked to the town, and when they got there, Randall, the jailer, asked Tice to stay till morning, and then they would write to Mr. L—— to come after his slave. Tice was an easy going fellow, and boasted that he never did a cruel thing when he could avoid it. Randall’s family lived in the jail, and Tice said to Mrs. Randall, “This poor child is tired out and starved. You give her a good supper and let her sleep on a bed; we won’t lock her in a cell to-night.”
Mrs. Randall objected at first, saying she would not be responsible for her safe keeping. Tice, laughing, said “her Prince would see to that.” In the morning Tice and the jailer went into the office and wrote a letter, notifying her master that Oneda and Prince were both safe in Pike County jail, but before mailing the letter they went to her room and she was gone. Mrs. Randall could give no account of her; she had put her in bed as directed, and that was all she could say about it; if she had got away she was glad of it, for, said she, “that girl has no more right to be a slave than I have. She is whiter than any of us.” A blood-hound was procured and taken to her room, and after smelling around, he took her track, being led by a cord, and went directly to the west fork of the Big Sandy, which runs through the town. Beyond that the hound could find no track, and it was decided that she must have taken a light skiff that usually laid at the crossing and gone down the river, and two hours after the boat was found capsized among some rocks below the rapids. So the letter to Mr. L—— was burned up and Tice went home. In the back yard of the jail there was a pit where a well had been commenced a long time ago, and abandoned for some cause when about eight feet deep. It was covered over with boards, and a short ladder had been left standing in it. After all was still about the premises, Mrs. Randall carried blankets and old clothes into it, and then went into Oneda’s room. After awhile they went out, walked to the river, sent the skiff adrift and returned, went through the house, and Oneda and Prince went into the pit, after which Mrs. Randall carefully replaced the boards. She kept them well supplied with food for ten davs, and then sent them towards Ohio by an old negro who lived alone just out of town, and was often absent for a week or two without being missed. Thenceforth she was hungry no more, nor did she travel without a guide. The U. G. R. R. took her direct to Canada by way of Cleveland, and by steamboat to Malden. After spending a few months in the Wilberforce Colony, Oneda returned to Ohio for the purpose of attending school. Prince was left in Canada, having become domesticated in a kind family. Oneda graduated at a popular seminary in Ohio, and then went to England, taking with her letters of introduction from the professors of the seminary. When on her way to New York, where she was to embark, she spent a week at our house.
In these brief sketches, no attempt has been made to give more than an outline of a few incidents connected with each case, and of many thousands who escaped from slavery the aid of the U. G. R. R., only some twenty or thirty have been alluded to. Of what they suffered before they started, little has been written. Their heroic achievements in effecting their escape against the terrible odds arrayed against them, and their enterprise and success in establishing for themselves homes, schools and churches, challenges the admiration of all good men.