A Slave Girl's Story: Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold.Drumgoold, Kate
Religion
A Slave Girl's Story: Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold.
Drumgoold, Kate
Drumgoold, Kate; Enslaved persons -- United States -- Biography
My white mother used to give it to me, but she did not let me know what
she was giving me, for she put some molasses in the oil and cooked them,
so I should not know. I would not have known if I had not seen her one
night have the old bottle in her hand putting the oil in the kettle,
which she was making ready for me, and I looked up and saw what it was
and, as young ones will do, did not want to take molasses and butter
which I had been taking so long, for I had to take it on every night or
I could not speak.
Later on she moved from the place where she was and bought another farm
where it was not near the water, as the doctor thought that was not a
good place for me to be, and I was not sick so much as I had been at the
former.
The first hard spell of sickness on this farm was the fever that I was
sick of at the time that she took sick of the yellow jaundice, and she
turned as yellow as anything could be. She went home with that awful
malady, thinking of me and of what my future should be in God's hands,
to love and bless the world in which I should live if it should be the
will of Him who knows the future of all the people that live on this
earth.
So God has been a father and a loving mother and all else to me, and
sometimes there has been enough of trials in this life to make me almost
forget that I had this strong arm to save me from these trials and
temptations; but when I fly to Him I find all and in all in Him.
He is my rock and my hiding place in the time of trials, for a child
that had all of the love and comfort of a queen was now left to her own
dear mother, who had so many more and had to work so hard to take care
of us all that I have seen sit up all night long working for her little
ones. I used to feel sorry to see her sitting up alone at her work. I
would get up out of the bed and sit with her till daylight; for I was
always near mother after the dear one had been plucked from this earth
to await my arrival.
I have found that learning is to refine and elevate the mind, so we
should cultivate our hearts and minds and live to bless those we meet.
We should neither flatter nor despise those that are rich or great.
It was not long after this dear one had been called away before we were
all in different places, and to share the fate that comes to those that
are left behind those that have been good and kind. Then the time is
coming that mother is to be taken from the whole family of little ones
and they are to be left in the hands of others. That is one of the
saddest times of life for children when they do not know if they shall
ever see her face on this green earth any more; and if to-day we should
hear the cries of those little lambs it surely would break the heart of
a stone, for remember that we have the same feelings for our mothers as
any race of people and our hearts will melt as easily as the richest
ones on this earth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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