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
History
Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman: Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West
How often do the shrieks of the poor but virtuous slave girl, ring through
the midnight air, as she, pleading for death rather than life, rushes
screaming away from a brutal master, infuriated and drunk! If it is a
fact, and certainly it is, that the master is thus affected by his costly
wine; what, think you, will be the temper and condition of the coarse and
heartless overseer who drinks his miserable whisky or bad brandy? It is
horrible, beyond description. I have often myself seen a drunken overseer,
after pouring down dram after dram, mount his horse and ride furiously
among the slaves, beating, bruising, mangling with his heavy cowhide every
one he chanced to meet, until the ground presented the appearance of a
battlefield.
CHAPTER XIX.
PERSECUTION OF THE COLORED PEOPLE.
While the colored population of New York were rejoicing in the measure of
freedom allowed them by the more wholesome laws of that State, our
brethren in Ohio were being oppressed and maltreated by the unjust and
odious "black laws" of that professedly free State, enacted with special
reference to the disposition of the colored race.
In Cincinnati, O., within sight of the slave land of Kentucky, a terrible
persecution had commenced, and an effort was made to drive all colored
persons from the place.
Our people had settled there in large numbers, but now a mob had assembled
in that city with the determination to drive them, not only from their
homes and city, but from the State. A bloody conflict ensued, in which the
white and black man's blood mingled freely. So great had been the loss of
property; and go horrid and fearful had been the scene, that our people
chose to leave, rather than remain under such untoward circumstances. They
lived in constant fear of the mob which had so abused and terrified them.
Families seated at the fireside started at every breath of wind, and
trembled at the sound of every approaching footstep. The father left his
family in fear, lest on his return from his daily labor, he should find
his wife and children butchered, and his house left desolate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account