Autobiography of a Female SlaveBrowne, Martha Griffith
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Autobiography of a Female Slave
Browne, Martha Griffith
African American women -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Enslaved women -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Fiction; Slavery -- Fiction
All that day my heart was dreaming of a new home--perhaps a kind, good
one! On the gallery I met Mr. Trueman (I love to write his name).
Rushing eagerly up to him, I offered my hand, all oblivious of the wide
chasm that the difference of race had placed between us; but, if that
thought had occurred to me, his benignant smile would have put it to
flight. Ah, he was the true reformer, who illustrated, in his own
deportment, the much talked-of theory of human brotherhood! He, with all
his learning, his native talent, his social position and legal
prominence, could condescend to speak in a familiar spirit to the
lowliest slave, and this made me, soured to harshness, feel at ease in
his presence.
I told him that I was fast recovering from the effects of my whipping. I
spoke of Louise's kindness, &c.
"I am to be sold, Mr. Trueman; I wish that you would buy me."
"My good girl, if I had the means I would not hesitate to make the
purchase, and instantly draw up your free papers; but I am, at the
present, laboring under great pecuniary embarrassments, which deny me
the right of exercising that generosity which my heart prompts in this
case."
I thanked him, over and over again, for his kindness. I felt not a
little distressed when he told me that he should leave for Boston early
on the following day. In bidding me adieu, he slipped, very modestly,
into my hand a ten-dollar bill, but this I could not accept from one to
whom I was already heavily indebted.
"No, my good friend, I cannot trespass so much upon you. Already I am
largely your debtor. Take back this money." I offered him the bill, but
his face colored deeply, as he replied:
"No, Ann, you would not wound my feelings, I am sure."
"Not for my freedom," I earnestly answered.
"Then accept this trifling gift. Let it be among the first of your
savings, as my contribution, toward the purchase-money for your
freedom." Seeing that I hesitated, he said, "if you persist in refusing,
you will offend me."
"Anything but that," I eagerly cried, as I took the money from that
blessed, charity-dispensing hand.
And this was the last I saw of him for many years; and, when we again
met, the shadow of deeper sorrows was resting on my brow.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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