The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 52
It was not very difficult to discover under the volubility and vivacity, a little forced, of this philosophical blackleg, into whose intimacy I had been so suddenly introduced, a deep-seated and bitter chagrin, and even shame, at living as he did; however he might urge, by way of apology, that it was only one of the applications of the fundamental principle of every slaveholding community. This, indeed, was an idea upon which he seemed to pride himself, and upon which he dwelt with a good deal of pertinacious ingenuity. To gain a living by the plunder of the weak and simple, was, he admitted, in the abstract, not to be defended. Yet, if he did not do it, somebody else would. His abstinence would not save them. ‘The weak and simple were destined to be plundered; and plundered they would be by somebody. Bred up as he had been to extravagant habits, could he be expected to renounce an employment — liable indeed to some fluctuations and uncertainties, as well as ta some moral objections, but, on the whole, one that paid—and to run the risk of starving, just to gratify his conscientious scruples? He trusted, he said, that, though a professional gambler, he had a conscience. His quarrel with Gouge and MecGrab, and his abandonment of the slave trading business, at which he might have made a fortune, was, he thought, evidence enough of that. But there was a limit to all things. A man must live, and live by such means, too, as his position and gifts allow him to adopt; and, all things considered, he did not see that he could be expected to give up his profession any more than the slaveholders their slaves, Nor can I say that I did, either.
On the whole, besides the necessity I was under of using him, and the additional information he might give me, in the search in which I was engaged, there was something in his straightforward, downright way of looking at things, as well as in his lively conversation and agreeable manners, which, rather pleased me.:
I therefore proceeded to make a return of his confidence, at which he seemed to be a good deal flattered. Complimenting his sagacity, I admitted my intimacy with a female slave, many years ago, whom, from his description of her, and the circumstances he had mentioned, I believed to be the very one whom McGrab had purchased in North Carolina, and whom he had sold to the Mississippi planter; and I added, that I believed her boy to be my child. What was the name of the planter, and could he aid me any further in finding them out?
"And suppose you find them," he asked, "what do you intend to do?"
"Buy them," I answered, "if I can, and set them free."
"Better think twice," he replied, "before you set out on any such adventure. Time, you know, makes changes. You can't expect to get back the young girl you left in North Carolina. O, the deceitful baggage! Didn't she tell me, with tears streaming down those great black eyes of hers, and such an air of truth that I couldn't help believing her, that she had a husband, the only man she had ever known any thing about, who was the father of her child, and who had been carried off by the slave traders a year or two before, and whom she expected yet to meet, by some good providence, some where in the south! Don't flatter yourself with the idea of any constancy to you. Even had she wished it, it could hardly have been in her power. Like as not you will' find her, if at all, grown as plump as a beer barrel, housekeeper, and something else besides, to her master; or may be, by this time, cook or washerwoman, and the mother, as Gouge said she might be, of a dozen additional children, and perhaps with an agreeable variety of complexions; though, for that matter, slave women of her color are in general mighty squeamish and particular — quite as much so as the white women — as to any connection with men of a darker hue than themselves."
Painful to me as these suggestions were, I could not but admit their high degree of probability. To what might net twenty years of servitude have reduced the wife of my heart! To what humiliations, dishonors, miserable degradations, corrupting connections might she not have been subjected, tempting as she was by her innocence, beauty, and gentleness, and exposed — without the least shield of law, religion, or public opinion — to the unbridled appetite, I do not say of any lecherous debauchee, but of any polygamous patriarch, amorous youth, or luxurious respectability who might have the fancy or the means to purchase her!
It made my heart grow sick and my brain spin to think of it.
"And then the boy," continued my tormenter. "If you had him as I saw him, — a bright little fellow, just able to speak, full of life and joy, and unable to understand what made his mother cry so, — you might hope to make something of him. He was a child such as nobody need be ashamed of. But what do you suppose he is by this time, with-the benefit of a slave education? If, my dear sir, you intended to act the father by him, or the friend by her, you should not have left them all this time in slavery."
I hastened to explain, in general terms, that my leaving them as they were was, at the time of my separation from them, a thing entirely beyond my control — it was not in my power to do otherwise; but that, so soon as I became possessed of the means, I had made every effort to discover and to purchase them; that I had traced them to Augusta, where all clew to them had been lost; but that the clew which he had so unexpectedly and accidentally put into my hands had recalled all the past, and, as I was unmarried, childless, and with nothing else in particular to occupy my thoughts, had inspired me with fresh desire to find them out, and, if possible, to make them free.
"Quite a romantic fellow, I see," rejoined my companion; "quite another Dick Johnson. True enough, the idea is not very agreeable of having one's children kicked, cuffed, and lashed through the world at the discretion of brutal overseers, peevish mistresses, or drunken, cross-grained masters, with no possible opening to rise if they would, and with no chance before them but to propagate a race of slaves. I dare say it seems so to you, with your English education, and especially as you have not any lawful children for your affections to fix upon. But here we don't mind it. A man is expected to sacrifice his own private paternal feelings, if he has any, for the good of the class to which he belongs. I dare say, in the course of time, the only representatives of many of our best distinguished southern statesmen and wealthiest families will be found among their slave descendants.
"Take my advice, and give over a ridiculous, Quixotic expedition. However, if you will persist in it, I will help you what little I can. The Mississippi planter, to whom the girl and her child were sold, was named Thomas. I have seen him several times since in my travels. Indeed, some handsome sums of money have before now passed from his pocket to mine. He still lives, or did lately, at no great distance from Vicksburg. I have friends in that town to whom I will give you letters, and by whose assistance you can find him out. Perhaps your girl and her boy are still living in his family. But have a care that you don't catch a Tartar."