Autobiography of a Female SlaveBrowne, Martha Griffith
History
Autobiography of a Female Slave
Browne, Martha Griffith
African American women -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Enslaved women -- Fiction; Kentucky -- Fiction; Slavery -- Fiction
handful at the North, who are willing to forfeit everything for the
maintenance of human justice and mercy. Blessed apostles, near to the
mount of God! your lips have been touched with the flame of a new
Pentecost, and ye speak as never men spake before! Who that listens to
the words of Parker, Sumner, and Seward, can believe them other than
inspired? Theirs is no ordinary gift of speech; it burns and blazes with
a mighty power! Cold must be the ear that hears them unmoved; and hard
the heart that throbs not in unison with their noble and earnest
expressions! Often have I paused in this little book, to render a feeble
tribute to these great reformers. It may be thought out of place, yet I
cannot repress the desire to speak my voluntary gratitude, and, in the
name of all my scattered race, thank them for the noble efforts they
have made in our behalf!
All the malignity of my nature was aroused against Miss Bradly, when I
heard her voice loudest in denunciation against Lindy.
As I was passing through the room, I could catch fragments of
conversation anything but pleasing to the ear of a slave; but I had to
listen in meekness, letting not even a working muscle betray my dissent.
They were orthodox, and would not tolerate even from an equal a word
contrary to their views.
I did not venture to ask the doctor what he thought of Aunt Polly, for
that would have been called impudent familiarity, punishable with
whipping at the "post;" but when I met young master in the entry, I
learned from him that the case was one of hopeless insanity.
Blood-letting, &c., had been resorted to, but with no effect. The doctor
gave it as his opinion that the case was "without remedy." Not knowing
that young master differed from his father and sisters, the doctor had,
in his jocose and unfeeling way, suggested that it was not much
difference; the old thing was of but little value; she was old and
worn-out. To all this young master made no other reply than a fixed look
from his meek eyes--a look which the doctor could not understand; for
the idea of sympathy with or pity for a slave would have struck him as
being a thing existing only in the bosom of a fanatical abolitionist,
whose conviction would not permit him to cross the line of Mason and
Dixon. Ah! little knew he (the coarse doctor) what a large heart full of
human charities had grown within; nay, was indigenous to this
south-western latitude. I believe, yes have reason to know, that the
pure sentiment of abolition is one that is near and dear to the heart of
many a Kentuckian; even those who are themselves the hereditary holders
of slaves are, in many instances, the most opposed to the system. This
sentiment is, perhaps, more largely developed in, and more openly
expressed by, the females of the State; and this is accounted for from
the fact that to be suspected of abolition tendencies is at once the
plague-mark whereby a man is ever after considered unfit for public
trust or political honor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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