The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV.
When I got back to Carleton-Hall, I found every thing in the greatest confusion. It was not long before I was made acquainted with the cause. It seemed that some twelve months previous, Mr Carleton had found himself very much pressed for money. "This had obliged him to look a little into his affairs. He found himself burdened with a load of debt of which before, he had no definite idea; and as his numerous creditors, who had been too long put off with promises, were beginning to be very clamorous, he saw that some vigorous remedy was necessary. To borrow, seemed the most certain means of relief from the immediate pressure of his debts; and he succeeded in obtaining a large loan from some Baltimore money-lenders, of which he secured the repayment by a mortgage upon his slaves, including even the house servants, and myself among the number. "This money he expended in satisfying several executions, which had already issued against him; and in stopping the mouths of the most clamorous of his creditors. The money was borrowed for a year; not with any expectation on Mr Carleton's part, of being able to repay it in that time, out of any funds of his own; but in the hope that before the year's end, he might succeed in obtaining a permanent loan, and so be enabled to cancel the mortgage.
In this expectation, he had hitherto been disappointed; and he was yet negotiating with the persons from whom he expected to borrow, when the time of repayment, mentioned in the mortgage, expired. This happened about a month previous; and when I got back to Carleton-Hall, I found that the strangers who had arrived that morning, were the agents of the Baltimore money-lenders, who had been sent to take possession of the mortgaged property. They had already caught as many of the slaves as they could find; and I no sooner entered the house, than I was seized, and put under a guard. "These precautions were thought necessary to prevent the slaves from running away, or concealing themselves from the agents of their new owners. My poor master was in the greatest distress and embarrassment that could be imagined. It was in vain that he begged for delay; and proposed various terms of accommodation. The agents declared that they had no discretion in the matter; they were instructed to get either the money or the slaves; and in case the money was not forthcoming, to proceed with the slaves to Charleston, in South Carolina, which, at that time, was esteemed the best market for disposing of that commodity.
As to paying the money at once, that was out of the question; but Mr Carleton hoped that he might be able in the course of a few days, if not to obtain the loan for which he was negotiating, at least to get such temporary assistance as would enable him to discharge the mortgage. The agents agreed to give him twenty-four hours, but refused to wait any longer. Mr Carleton despaired of doing any thing in so short a time; and did not think it worth his while to attempt it. The plantation hands must go; there did not seem to be any remedy for that; but he was very desirous to save his house servants from the slave-market, and he begged the agents not to leave him without a servant to make his bed or cook his dinner.
The agents replied that they were truly sorry for the disagreeable situation in which he found himself; but that, since the mortgage was made, several of the slaves included in the schedule were dead; that some of the others seemed hardly worth the sum at which they had been valued; that the price of slaves had fallen considerably since the mortgage was made, and seemed likely to fall more; and that every thing considered, they thought it more than doubtful whether the mortgaged property would be sufficient to satisfy the debt, However, they were desirous to indulge him as far as their duty to their principals would allow; and if he would pay the value of such of the slaves as he wished to retain, they had no objections to receive the money instead of the servants.
Mr Carleton had not fifty dollars in the house; but he immediately started off to see what he could borrow in the neighborhood. Wherever he went, he found that the news of what had happened, had preceded him. Beside his Baltimore mortgage, he was known to owe many other debts; and his neighbors generally looked upon him as a ruined man. Of course, the greater part of them felt no inclination to lend him their money; and in fact, very many of them were not so much better off than Mr Carleton as to have much money to lend. After riding about the greater part of the day, he succeeded in borrowing a few hundred dollars, on condition however, that he should secure the repayment by a mortgage of such slaves as he should redeem. He had returned to the house a little before I did, and was already considering with himself which of his slaves he should retain. He told me.that I had been a good and trust-worthy servant; and that he was very unwilling to part with me. But he had not money enough to redeem us all; and his old nurse and her family were entitled to be retained in preference to any of the rest of us. Not only were their services the most essential to him, but the mother had long been a favorite servant, her children were born and bred in his family, and he considered it a matter of conscience to keep them, at all events. The agents released those of the servants whom he selected. The rest of us were kept confined, and received notice to be ready for a start, early the next morning.
I had yet one hope. I thought if Mrs Montgomery could be informed of my situation she would certainly buy me. I mentioned it to my master. He told me not to flatter myself too much with that idea; — for Mrs Montgomery already had more servants about her house than she had any kind of use for. However, he readily undertook to write her a note explaining my situation. It was despatched by a servant, and I waited with impatient hope for the answer.
At last the messenger returned. Mrs Montgomery and her daughter had gone that morning to visit her brother, who lived some ten miles from Poplar-Grove, and the were expected to be absent three or four days. I believe I had heard something of this in the morning; but in my hurry, confusion and excitement, it had escaped my memory.
My last hope was now gone; and as it went, the shock I felt was dreadful. Till that moment, I had concealed from myself, the misery of my situation. I had been familiar with calamity, but this exceeded any thing I had ever suffered. It is true, I had once before been separated from my wife; but my bodily pains, my delirium and fever had helped to blunt the agony of that separation. Now, I was torn from both wife and child! — and that too, without any thing to call off my attention, or to deaden the torture of conscious agony. My heart swelled with impotent passion, and beat as though it would leap from my bosom. My forehead glowed with a burning heat. I would have wept; but even that relief was denied me. The tears refused to flow; the fever in my brain had parched them up.
My first impulse was, to attempt making my escape. But my new masters were too well acquainted with the business of legal kidnapping, to give me an opportunity. We were all collected in one of the out-houses, and carefully secured. With many of the plantation hands, this, Was quite an unnecessary precaution. A large proportion of them were so sick and weary of the tyranny of Mr Carleton's overseer, that they were glad of any change; and when their master made them a farewell visit, and began to condole with them upon their misfortune, several of them were bold enough to tell him that they thought it no misfortune at all; for whatever might happen, they could not be worse treated than they had been by his overseer. Mr Carleton seemed not well pleased at this bold disclosure, and took his leave of us rather abruptly; and certainly this piece of information could not have been very soothing to his feelings.
At early dawn we were put into travelling order. A wagon carried the: provisions and the younger children. The rest, of us were chained together, and proceeded in the usual fashion.
It was a long journey, and we were two or three weeks upon the road. Considering that we were slaves driven to market, we were treated on the whole, with unexpected humanity, At the end of the third or fourth day's journey, the women and children were released from their chains; and two or three days later, a part of the men received the same indulgence. Those of us, of whom they were more suspicious, were still kept in irons. Our-drivers seemed desirous to enhance our value by putting us into good condition. Our daily journey was quite moderate; we were all furnished with shoes, and were allowed plenty to eat. At night we encamped by the road-side; kindled a large fire, cooked our hominy, and made a hut of branches to sleep under. Several of the company declared that they were never so well treated in all their lives; and they went along laughing and singing more like men travelling for pleasure, than like slaves going to be sold. So little accustomed is the slave to kindness or indulgence of any sort, that the merest trifle is enough to put him into ecstasy. The gift of a single extra meal is sufficient to make him fall in love even with a slave-driver.
The songs and laughter of my companions only served to aggravate my melancholy. They observed it, and did their best to cheer me. There never was a kinder-hearted company, and I found some relief even in their rude efforts at consolation; for there is. more power in the sympathy of the humblest human creature than the haughty children of luxury are apt to believe. I was a favorite among the servants at Carleton-Hall, because I had taken some little pains to be so; for I had long since renounced that silly prejudice and foolish pride, which at an earlier period, haa kept me aloof from my fellow servants, and had justly earned me their hatred and dislike. Experience had made me wiser; and I no longer took sides with our oppressors by joining them in the false notion of their own natural superiority; — a notion founded only in the arrogant prejudice of conceited ignorance, and long since discarded by the liberal and enlightened; but a notion which is still the orthodox creed of all America, and the principal, I might almost say the sole foundation, which sustains the iniquitous superstructure of American slavery. I had made it a point to gain the good will and affection of my fellow servants, by mixing among them; taking an interest in all their concerns; and rendering them such little services as my favor with Mr Carleton put in my power. Once or twice indeed, I had overstepped the mark, and got myself into very serious trouble by letting my master know what severities his overseer inflicted. But though my attempts at serving them were not always successful, their gratitude was not the less on that account.
When my companions observed my melancholy they stopped their songs, and having run through their few topics of condolence, they continued their conversation in a subdued and moderated tone, as if unwilling to irritate my feeling by what might seem to me, unseasonable merriment. I saw, and in my heart acknowledged the kindness of their intention; but I did not wish that my sadness should cast a shade over what they enjoyed as a holiday, — the only holiday perhaps which their miserable fate would ever allow them. I told them that nothing would be so likely to cheer me, as tosee them merry; and though my heart was aching and ready almost to burst, I forced a laugh, and started a song. The rest joined in it; the chorus rose again loud as ever; the laugh went round; and the turbulence of their merriment soon allowed me to sink again into a moody silence.
I had the natural feelings ofa man; I loved my wife and child. Had they been snatched from me by death, or had I been separated from them, by some fixed, inevitable, natural necessity, I should have wept, no doubt, but my feelings would have been those of simple grief, unmixed with any more bitter emotion. But that the dear ties of husband and father, ties so twined about my inmost heart, should be thus violently severed, without a moment's warning, and at
'a creditor's caprice; and he too the creditor of another; to be thus chained up, torn from my home, and driven to market, there to be sold to pay the debts of a man who called himself my master; — the thoughts of this stirred up within my soul a bitter hatred and a burning indignation against the laws and the people that tolerate such things; fierce and deadly passions which tore my heart, distracted and tormented me, even more than my grief at the sudden separation.
But the more violent emotions ever tend to cure themselves. If the patient survive the first paroxysm, his mind speedily begins to verge towards its natural equilibrium. I found it so. The torture of furious but impotent emotions at first almost overpowered me. But my feelings softened by degrees; till, at length, they subsided into a dull, but fixed and settled misery; a misery which the impulse of temporary excitement may sometimes make me forget, but which, like the guilty man's remorse, is too deeply rooted to be ever eradicated.