Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman: Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada WestSteward, Austin
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Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman: Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West
There happened to be on the boat at the time, several companies of citizen
soldiers, who, shocked by the awful spectacle, expressed their decided
abhorrence of the institution of Slavery, declaring that it was not for
such peculiar villainy, that their fathers fought and bled on the battle
field. So determined were they in their indignation; so loudly demanded
they a cessation of such occurrences on board our boats, and the soil of
a free State, that the slaveholders became greatly alarmed, and with all
possible dispatch they hurriedly dragged the poor bleeding slave into a
closet, and securely locked the door; nor have I ever been able to learn
his final doom. Whether the kindly messenger of death released him from
the clutches of the man-stealer, or whether he recovered to serve his
brutal master, I have never been informed.
After this exciting scene had passed, I began to realize that I was
feeling quite ill; an unusual load seemed to oppress my stomach, and by
the time we had reached New York city, I was exceedingly distressed. I
hastened to a boarding house, kept by a colored woman, who did everything
in her power to relieve me; but I grew worse until I thought in reality, I
must die. The lady supposed I was dying of cholera, sent to Brooklyn after
Mr. Nell; but having previously administered an emetic, I began to feel
better; and when I had finally emptied my stomach of its contents, _tea
and all_, by vomiting, I felt into a profound sleep, from which I awoke
greatly relieved. The kindness of that lady I shall not soon forget. She
had a house full of boarders, who would have fled instantly, had they
known that, as she supposed, I was suffering from cholera; and instead of
sending me to the hospital, as she might have done, she kept all quiet
until it was over, doing all she could for my relief and comfort; yet, it
was a scene of distress which I hope may never be repeated.
On the following morning, I saw in the city papers, "A Card," inserted by
the owner of the poor slave on board the steamboat, informing the public
that he was returning South with a fugitive slave, who, when arrested,
evinced great willingness to return; who had confessed also, that he had
done very wrong in leaving his master, for which he was sorry,--but he
supposed that the abolitionists had been tampering with him. That was all!
Not a word about his attempt to take his life! Oh no, he merely wished to
allay the excitement, that the horrid deed had produced on the minds of
those present.
I was indignant at the publication of such a deliberate falsehood, and
immediately wrote and published that I too was on board the same boat with
the fugitive; that I had witnessed an exhibition of his willingness to
return to Slavery, by seeing him cut his throat, and lay on the deck
wallowing in his blood; that the scene had so excited the sympathies of
the soldiers present, that his owner had been obliged to hurry him out of
their sight, &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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