Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South CarolinaAdams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
General
Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina
Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
African Americans -- Fiction; Biographical fiction; Pereira, Manuel -- Fiction; South Carolina -- Fiction
The Captain turned from the scene with feelings that left deep
impressions upon his mind, and that afternoon took his departure for his
Scottish home.
Time passed heavily at the jail, and day after day Manuel awaited his
fate with anxiety. At every tap of the prison-bell he would spring to
the door and listen, asserting that he heard the consul's voice in every
passing sound. Day after day the consul would call upon him and quiet
his fears, reassuring him that he was safe and should not be sold as
a slave. At length, on the seventeenth day of May, after nearly two
months' imprisonment, the glad news was received that Manuel Pereira
was not to be sold, according to the statutes, but to be released upon
payment of all costs, &c. &c., and immediately sent beyond the limits
of the State. We leave it to the reader's fancy, to picture the scene of
joy on the reception of the news in the “stewards' cell.”
The consul lost no time in arranging his affairs for him, and at five
o'clock on the afternoon of the 17th of May, 1852, Manuel Pereira,
a poor, shipwrecked mariner, who, by the dispensation of an all-wise
Providence, was cast upon the shores of South Carolina, and imprisoned
because hospitality to him was “contrary to law,” was led forth, pale
and emaciated, by two constables, thrust into a closely covered vehicle,
and driven at full speed to the steamboat then awaiting to depart for
New York. This is but a faint glimpse, of the suffering to which colored
stewards are subjected in the Charleston jail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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