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Page 2
You also are your father's property; and when he dies, you will be
the property of your whiter brother. You black his shoes, tend upon
him at table, and sleep on the floor in his room, to give him water
if he is thirsty in the night. You see him learning to read, and you
hear your father read wonderful things from the newspapers. Very
naturally, you want to read, too. You ask your brother to teach you
the letters. He gives you a kick, calls you a "damned nig," and
informs his father, who orders you to be flogged for insolence.
Alone on the hard floor at night, still smarting from your blows,
you ponder over the great mystery of knowledge and wonder why it
would do _you_ any more harm than it does your brother. Henceforth,
all scraps of newspapers you can find are carefully laid by.
Helplessly you pore over them, at stolen moments, as if you expected
some miracle would reveal the meaning of those printed signs.
Cunning comes to your aid. It is the only weapon of the weak against
the strong. When you see white boys playing in the street, you trace
a letter in the sand, and say, "My young master calls that B." "That
ain't B, you dammed nigger. That's A"! they shout. Now you know what
shape is A; and diligently you hunt it out wherever it is to be
found on your scraps of newspaper. By slow degrees you toil on, in
similar ways, through all the alphabet. No student of Greek or
Hebrew ever deserved so much praise for ingenuity and diligence. But
the years pass on, and still you cannot read. Your master-brother
now and then gives you a copper. You hoard them, and buy a primer;
screening yourself from suspicion, by telling the bookseller that
your master wants it for his sister's little boy. You find the
picture of a cat, with three letters by its side; and now you know
how cat is spelt. Elated with your wonderful discovery, you are
eager to catch a minute to study your primer. Too eager, alas! for
your mistress catches you absorbed in it, and your little book is
promptly burned. You are sent to be flogged, and your lacerated back
is washed with brine to make it heal quickly. But in spite of all
their efforts, your intelligent mind is too cunning for them. Before
twenty years have passed, you have stumbled along into the Bible;
alone in the dark, over a rugged road of vowels and consonants. You
keep the precious volume concealed under a board in the floor, and
read it at snatches, by the light of a pine knot. You read that God
has created of one blood all the nations of the earth; and that his
commandment is, to do unto others as we would that they should do
unto us. You think of your weeping mother, torn from your tender
arms by the cruel slave-trader; of the interdicted light of
knowledge; of the Bible kept as a sealed book from all whose skins
have a tinge of black, or brown, or yellow; of how those brown and
yellow complexions came to be so common; of yourself, the son of the
Governor, yet obliged to read the Bible by stealth, under the
penalty of a bleeding back washed with brine. These and many other
things revolve in your active mind, and your unwritten inferences
are worth whole folios of theological commentaries.
As youth ripens into manhood, life bears for you, as it does for
others, its brightest, sweetest flower. You love young Amy, with
rippling black hair, and large dark eyes, with long, silky fringes.
You inherit from your father, the Governor, a taste for beauty
warmly-tinted, like Cleopatra's. You and Amy are of rank to make a
suitable match; for you are the son of a Southern Governor, and she
is the daughter of a United States Senator, from the North, who
often shared her master's hospitality; her handsome mother being a
portion of that hospitality, and he being large-minded enough to
"conquer prejudices." You have good sympathy in other respects also,
for your mothers were both slaves; and as it is conveniently and
profitably arranged for the masters that "the child shall follow the
condition of the _mother_," you are consequently both of you slaves.
But there are some compensations for your hard lot. Amy's simple
admiration flatters your vanity. She considers you a prodigy of
learning because you can read the Bible, and she has not the
faintest idea how such skill can be acquired. She gives you her
whole heart, full of the blind confidence of a first love. The
divine spark, which kindles aspirations for freedom in the human
soul, has been glowing more and more brightly since you have emerged
from boyhood, and now her glances kindle it into a flame. For her
dear sake, you long to be a free man, with power to protect her from
the degrading incidents of a slave-girl's life. Wages acquire new
value in your eyes, from a wish to supply her with comforts, and
enhance her beauty by becoming dress. For her sake, you are
ambitious to acquire skill in the carpenter's trade, to which your,
master-brother has applied you as the best investment of his human
capital. It is true, he takes all your wages; but then, by acquiring
uncommon facility, you hope to accomplish your daily tasks in
shorter time, and thus obtain some extra hours to do jobs for
yourself. These you can eke out by working late into the night, and
rising when the day dawns. Thus you calculate to be able in time to
buy the use of your own limbs. Poor fellow! Your intelligence and
industry prove a misfortune. They charge twice as much for the
machine of your body on account of the soul-power which moves it.
Your master-brother tells you that you would bring eighteen hundred
dollars in the market. It is a large sum. Almost hopeless seems the
prospect of earning it, at such odd hours as you can catch when the
hard day's task is done. But you look at Amy, and are inspired with
faith to remove mountains. Your master-brother graciously consents
to receive payment by instalments. These prove a convenient addition
to the whole of your wages. They will enable him to buy a new race
horse, and increase his stock of choice wines. While he sleeps off
drunkenness, you are toiling for him, with the blessed prospect of
freedom far ahead, but burning brightly in the distance, like a
Drummond Light, guiding the watchful mariner over a midnight sea.
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