A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. HavilandHaviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Religion
A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland
Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith)
Freed persons; Haviland, Laura S. (Laura Smith), 1808-1898; Underground Railroad
The unbounded confidence they placed in me was surprising; for they
often brought their business papers for me to examine, to see whether
they were right. One man brought me a note, as the employer could not
pay him for his work in money. He said it was a note for groceries; but
the grocer refused to take it, and said it was not good. I told him
there was neither date nor name to it. I wrote the man a letter, asking
him to rectify the mistake, which he did; but he gave his employee
credit for only half the days he had worked. They were so often
deceived and cheated in many ways, because of their extreme ignorance,
that I did not wonder at the conclusion one escaped fugitive had
reached. His master was a Presbyterian minister, but he had known him
to whip his sister, the cook, after coming home from Church; and he
said then he never would have faith in white folks' religion. Since
coming to this colony he watched me a long while before he made up his
mind that white people could have a pure religion. But now he believed
"that the Lord hid his Spirit in the hearts of white people at the
North; but it was a make-believe in slaveholders."
I was surprised one day to meet the mother of three of my scholars, who
gave her thrilling experience in her escape from slavery; but she had
little more than commenced her story before I found her to be one for
whom I laid a plan with her sister, who had bought herself. As I named
a circumstance, she exclaimed in surprise, "Why honey! is dis possible?
God sent you here to larn my gals to read, an' we didn't know you," and
tears began to drop thicker and faster, as she recounted the blessings
that had multiplied since her arrival in Canada. She had in the three
years worked for a little home. Her two older girls were at work, and
they were all so happy in their freedom.
These fugitives often came five or six miles for me to write letters to
their friends in the South, with whom they left a secret arrangement
very frequently with white people who were their friends, but secretly,
for fear of the ruling power, as were the disciples of Christ who
feared the Jews. Their notes, or articles of agreement, were generally
brought to me to draft for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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