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Page 4
In 1830, being then about sixteen years of age, William was hired to a
slave-dealer named Walker. This change of employment led the youth away
south and frustrated, for a time, his plans for escape. His experience
while in this capacity furnishes some interesting, though painful,
details of the legalized traffic in human beings carried on in the
United States. The desperation to which the slaves are driven at their
forced separation from husband, wife, children, and kindred, he found to
be a frequent cause of suicide. Slave-dealers he discovered were as
great adepts at deception in the sale of their commodity as the most
knowing down-easter, or tricky horse dealer. William's occupation on
board the steamer, as they steamed south, was to prepare the stock for
the market, by shaving off whiskers and blacking the grey hairs with a
colouring composition.
At the expiration of the period of his hiring with Walker, William
returned to his master rejoiced to have escaped an employment so
repugnant to his feelings. But this joy was not of long duration. One of
his sisters who, although sold to another master had been living in the
same city with himself and mother, was again sold to be sent away south,
never in all probability to meet her sorrowing relatives. Dr. Young
also, wanting money, intimated to his young kinsman that he was about to
sell him. This intimation determined William, in conjunction with his
mother, to attempt their escape. For ten nights they travelled
northwards, hiding themselves in the woods by day. The mother and son at
length deemed themselves safe from re-capture, and, although weary and
foot-sore, were laying down sanguine plans for the acquisition of a farm
in Canada, the purchase of the freedom of the six other members of the
family still in slavery, and rejoicing in the anticipated happiness of
their free home in Canada. At that moment three men made up to and
seized them, bound the son and led him, with his desponding mother,
back to slavery. Elizabeth was sold and sent away south, while her son
became the property of a merchant tailor named Willi. Mr. Brown's
description of the final interview between himself and his mother, is
one of the most touching portions of his narrative. The mother, after
expressing her conviction of the speedy escape from slavery by the hand
of death, enjoined her child to persevere in his endeavours to gain his
freedom by flight. Her blessing was interrupted by the kick and curse
bestowed by her dehumanized master upon her beloved son.
After having been hired for a short time to the captain of the
steam-boat _Otto_, William was finally sold to Captain Enoch Price for
650 dollars. That the quickness and intelligence of William rendered him
very valuable as a slave, is favoured by the evidence of Enoch Price
himself, who states that he was offered 2000 dollars for Sanford (as he
was called), in New Orleans. William was strongly urged by his new
mistress to marry. To facilitate this object, she even went so far as to
purchase a girl for whom she fancied he had an affection. He himself,
however, had secretly resolved never to enter into such a connexion
while in slavery, knowing that marriage, in the true and honourable
sense of the term, could not exist among slaves. Notwithstanding the
multitude of petty offences for which a slave is severely punished, it
is singular that one crime--bigamy--is visited upon a white with
severity, while no slave has ever yet been tried for it. In fact, the
man is allowed to form connections with as many women, and the women
with as many men, as they please.
At St. Louis, William was employed as coachman to Mr. Price; but when
that gentleman subsequently took his family up the river to Cincinnati,
Sanford acted as appointed steward. While lying off this city, the
long-looked-for opportunity of escape presented itself; and on the 1st
of January, 1834--he being then almost twenty years of age--succeeded in
getting from the steamer to the wharf, and thence to the woods, where he
lay concealed until the shades of night had set in, when he again
commenced his journey northwards. While with Dr. Young, a nephew of that
gentleman, whose christian name was William, came into the family: the
slave was, therefore, denuded of the name of William, and thenceforth
called Sanford. This deprivation of his original name he had ever
regarded as an indignity, and having now gained his freedom he resumed
his original name; and as there was no one by whom he could be addressed
by it, he exultingly enjoyed the first-fruits of his freedom by calling
himself aloud by his old name "William!" After passing through a variety
of painful vicissitudes, on the eighth day he found himself destitute of
pecuniary means, and unable, from severe illness, to pursue his journey.
In that condition he was discovered by a venerable member of the Society
of Friends, who placed him in a covered waggon and took him to his own
house. There he remained about fifteen days, and by the kind treatment
of his host and hostess, who were what in America are called
"Thompsonians," he was restored to health, and supplied with the means
of pursuing his journey. The name of this, his first kind benefactor,
was "Wells Brown." As William had risen from the degradation of a slave
to the dignity of a man, it was expedient that he should follow the
customs of other men, and adopt a second name. His venerable friend,
therefore, bestowed upon him his own name, which, prefixed by his former
designation, made him "William Wells Brown," a name that will live in
history, while those of the men who claimed him as property would, were
it not for his deeds, have been unknown beyond the town in which they
lived. In nine days from the time he left Wells Brown's house, he
arrived at Cleveland, in the State of Ohio, where he found he could
remain comparatively safe from the pursuit of the man-stealer. Having
obtained employment as a waiter, he remained in that city until the
following spring, when he procured an engagement on board a steam-boat
plying on Lake Erie. In that situation he was enabled, during seven
months, to assist no less than sixty-nine slaves to escape to Canada.
While a slave he had regarded the whites as the natural enemies of his
race. It was, therefore, with no small pleasure that he discovered the
existence of the salt of America, in the despised Abolitionists of the
Northern States. He read with assiduity the writings of Benjamin Lundy,
William Lloyd Garrison, and others; and after his own twenty years'
experience of slavery, it is not surprising that he should have
enthusiastically embraced the principles of "total and immediate
emancipation," and "no union with slaveholders."
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