This plantation is situated on Wye river--the river receiving its name, doubtless, from Wales, where the Lloyds originated. All sectarism false and mischievous--the regenerated, throughout the world, members of one body, and the HEAD Christ Jesus. The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on Col. Lloyd's plantation. The Columbian Orator and its Lessons, . That was a precious dollar to me. Some notion may be formed of the difference in my feelings and circumstances, while abroad, from the following extract from one of a series of letters addressed by me to Mr. Garrison, and published in the Liberator. . and better uses than slavery, thrives best under the gentle treatment of a kind master. With us it was a doubtful liberty, at best, that we sought; and a certain, lingering death in the rice swamps and sugar fields, if we failed. About this plantation, and about that queer old master--who must be something more than a man, and something worse than an angel--the reader will easily imagine that I was not only curious, but eager, to known all that could be known. forever as a fixed fact. Several circumstances seemed to point SANDY out, as our betrayer. For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration, often referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting is transformed, as it were, into a single individuality--the orator wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by the simple majesty of his all controlling thought, converting his hearers into the express image of his own soul. . That very convenient covert for all manner of cruelty and outrage--that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would "take the place," was pleaded, in extenuation of this revolting crime, just as it had been cited in defense of a thousand similar ones. But my triumph was short. Auld sent off to Baltimore, making his brother Hugh welcome to her services. After many threats, which made no impression on me, he rushed at me with something of the savage fierceness of a wolf, tore off the few and thinly worn clothes I had on, and proceeded to wear out, on my back, the heavy goads which he had cut from the gum tree. Death of Young Master Richard, . Then, too, I thought, since I had endured much in this line on Lloyd's plantation, I could endure as much elsewhere, and especially at Baltimore; for I had something of the feeling about that city which is expressed in the saying, that being "hanged in England, is better than dying a natural death in Ireland." He was a man that made his crutches do him good service. I was generally introduced as a "chattel"--a "thing"--a piece of southern "property"--the chairman assuring the audience that it could speak. Is that a question for republicans? . And for this special mission, his plantation education was better than any he could have acquired in any lettered school. "But, Sir," I said, "I am sick and tired, and I cannot get home to-night." . Such scenes are the every-day fruits of American slavery. England is often charged with having, established slavery in the United States, and if there were no other justification than this, for appealing to her people to lend their moral aid for the abolition of slavery, I should be justified. The teeming riches of the Chesapeake bay, its rock, perch, drums, crocus, trout, oysters, crabs, and terrapin, are drawn hither to adorn the glittering table of the great house. The dwelling of my grandmother and grandfather had few pretensions. Leaving out of sight, for a moment, grave facts, to this point, I will state one or two, which illustrate a very interesting feature of American character as well as American prejudice. --"Go and tell your master"--"I will make your master acquainted with your conduct"--she would say; but we were inapt scholars. Like most other men, we had done the talking part. So we rolled the guilt on other shoulders. It furnished me a new insight into the unnatural power to which I was subjected. The practice of separating children from their mothers, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. To these two men--the greatest men to whom the nation has yet given birth--may. A coroner's jury was assembled, who decided that the girl had come to her death by severe beating. . As a successful editor, in our land, he occupies this position. Part II. Then the lady would go on, singing her sweet hymns, as though her righteous soul were sighing for the holy realms of paradise. If, however, I found in my new home--to which I was going with such blissful anticipations--hardship, whipping and nakedness, I had the questionable consolation that I should not have escaped any one of these evils by remaining under the management of Aunt Katy. I was still in the woods, unresolved what to do. These I got from the Liberator, and from those who believed in that paper. Her grave is, as the grave of the dead at sea, unmarked, and without stone or stake. The valuation and the division of slaves, among contending heirs, is an important incident in slave life. Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Public sentiment and the law, in their opinion, would hand me over to the tormentors. The descriptions are animated and critical, and besides giving information which everybody desires to know, present many noble and just views of reform.--N.Y. He has appealed to the press of England; the press of England is conducted by English hearts, and that press will do him justice. I am the more inclined to think that he suspected us, because, prudent as we were, as I now look back, I can see that we did many silly things, very well calculated to awaken suspicion. . I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip; the death-like gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman; the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market. While America is printing tracts and bibles; sending missionaries abroad to convert the heathen; expending her money in various ways for the promotion of the gospel in foreign lands--the slave not only lies forgotten, uncared for, but is trampled under foot by the very churches of the land. The feasibility of the plan, too. As summer came on, and the long Sabbath days stretched themselves over our idleness, I became uneasy, and wanted a Sabbath school, in which to exercise my gifts, and to impart the little knowledge of letters which I possessed, to my brother slaves. While slaves prefer their lives, with flogging, to instant death, they will always find christians enough, like unto Covey, to accommodate that preference. We were, at times, remarkably buoyant, singing hymns and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in their tone as if we had reached a land of freedom and safety. "Own nothing!" Eight or ten years had now passed since I had been taken from my grandmother's cabin, in Tuckahoe; and these years, for the most part, I had spent in Baltimore, where--as the reader has already seen--I was treated with comparative tenderness. He was a sailor, warm-hearted and generous, and he listened to my story with a brother's interest. IF the volume now presented to the public were a mere work of ART, the history of its misfortune might be written in two very simple words--TOO LATE. Especially were I and my sister Eliza inapt in this particular. The cause was good; the men engaged in it were. By this time, my little "Master Tommy" had grown to be a big boy, and had written over a number of copy books, and brought them. By this time, Bill, the hired man, came home. They awaken the sympathies for the slave, in which antislavery principles take root, grow, and flourish. I made an effort to rise, but fell back in the attempt, before gaining my feet. The first winter was unusually severe, in consequence of the high prices of food; but even during that winter we probably suffered less than many who had been free all their lives. Why are some people slaves, and others masters? The overseer never was allowed to whip Harry; why then should he be allowed to whip Harry's wife? His. It was so on our plantation. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery--the great sin and shame of America! The Singing of the Slaves no Proof of Contentment, . . And such a boy, so far as I can now remember, was the boy whose life in slavery I am now narrating. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent--every antislavery organization dissolved--every anti-slavery press demolished--every anti-slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or what not, were searched out, gathered together, deliberately burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have "no peace." I never think of this terrible interference of slavery with my infantile affections, and its diverting them from their natural course, without feelings to which I can give no adequate expression. Frederick, I aint goin' to tech ye," and Bill walked off, leaving Covey and myself to settle our matters as best we might. It so happened that I was not in very good odor, and I was far from being a trust-worthy slave. . [2] His University studies were interrupted following his first year at University of Toronto in the faculty of Physiology and Biochemistry,[1] by the onset of the First World War. Dragged behind Horses--The Jail a Relief, . sleep, and waked in the morning only to find my mother gone, and myself left at the mercy of the sable virago, dominant in my old master's kitchen, whose fiery wrath was my constant dread. . . Judging from my own observation and experience, I believe these holidays to be among the most effective means, in the hands of slaveholders, of keeping down the spirit of insurrection among the slaves. My mother died when I could not have been more than eight or nine years old, on one of old master's farms in Tuckahoe, in the neighborhood of Hillsborough. In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but, in the lips of our company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery. All that Mr. Gore had to do, was to make his peace with Col. Lloyd. The keen caterers for the public attention, set down, in this column, such men only as have won high mark in the public esteem. He was, in all respects, a better man than his predecessor; as good as any man can be, and yet be an overseer. It happened one day, at Nantucket, that he, diffidently and reluctantly, was led to address an anti-slavery meeting. Just as I began to help myself to my very dry meal, in came my dear mother. The bible was his text book--held sacred, as the word of the Eternal Father--sinless perfection--complete submission to insults and injuries--literal obedience to the injunction, if smitten on one side to turn the other also. The thought itself vexed me, and the manner in which Master Hugh received my wages, vexed me more than the original wrong. I have seen poor Mary contending for the offal, with the pigs in the street. The book is one of most absorbing interest.--Pittsburgh Dispatch. He gave her several sharp blows. The act for which appellant was convicted was clearly `speech' contemplated by the First Amendment." Banting chose to share half of the prize money with Best. Slaveholding Cruelty restrained by Public Opinion, . I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor place in the whole volume; but that names and places are literally given, and that every transaction therein described actually transpired. He called for his cousin Hughes, to come to his assistance, and now the scene was changed. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. Here, thought I, is something worth living for; here is an excellent chance for usefulness; and I shall soon have a company of young friends, lovers of knowledge, like some of my Baltimore friends, from whom I now felt parted forever. A city newspaper, the "Baltimore American," gave me the incendiary information denied me by the dictionary. Here was the evil from which to escape. Abler defenders of the doctrine of fellowshiping slaveholders as christians, have not been met with. The delicate colored maid rustled in the scarcely worn silk of her young mistress, while the servant men were equally well attired from the overflowing wardrobe of their young masters; so that, in dress, as well as in form and feature, in manner and speech, in tastes and habits, the distance between these favored few, and the sorrow and hunger-smitten. The old man bore it patiently, to the last, answering each blow with a slight shrug of the shoulders, and a groan. Poor nigger you can't get over dat; . What Hopkins did reluctantly, Gore did with alacrity. Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a very tall, dilapidated, old brick building--the architectural dimensions of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose--now occupied by slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever." . In thus dragging you again before the public, I am aware that I shall subject myself to no inconsiderable amount of censure. . I hated slavery, always, and the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze, to fan it into a blaze, at any moment. . The general sense of decency that must pervade such a population, does much to check and prevent those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty, and those dark crimes without a name, almost openly perpetrated on the plantation. Family of Old Master--Social Position, . . Covey at length (two hours had elapsed) gave up the contest. I have sometimes thought, that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly spiritual-minded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere physical cruelties. It comes even as far north as the state of New York. In law, the slave has no wife, no children, no country, and no home. President Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" Speech (1941) To the Congress of the United States: I address you, the Members of the Seventy-Seventh Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. When this conviction was thoroughly established, I was most narrowly watched in all my movements. White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then--to get the reward--they have kidnapped them, and returned them to their masters. Let not the reader suppose, from what we have said, that this is a mere novel. . Society at large has bound itself, in form and in fact, to assist Master Thomas in robbing me of my rightful liberty, and of the just reward of my labor; therefore, whatever rights I have against Master Thomas, I have, equally, against those confederated with him in robbing me of liberty. This detestable character, all were unwilling to assume. Once master of my own time, I felt sure that I could make, over and above my obligation to him, a dollar or two every week. Such is the reasoning, and such the practice. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. The old employments by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood, are gradually, and it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. All the circumstances of William, on the great house farm, show him to have occupied a different position from the other slaves, and, certainly, there is nothing in the supposed hostility of slaveholders to amalgamation, to forbid the supposition that William Wilks was the son of Edward Lloyd. Even to these children she was often fiendish in her brutality. I was not then aware of the powerful influence of that religious body in favor of the enslavement of my race, nor did I see how the northern churches could be responsible for the conduct of southern churches; neither did I fully understand how it could be my duty to remain separate from the church, because bad men were connected with it. are they living or dead? I had put off running away, until now I was to be placed where the opportunities for escaping were much fewer than in a large city like Baltimore. Can it all be seeming? It is not uncommon to charge slaves with great treachery toward each other, and to believe them incapable of confiding in each other; but I must say, that I never loved, esteemed, or confided in men, more than I did in these. George N. Briggs. PLACE OF BIRTH--CHARACTER OF THE DISTRICT--TUCKAHOE--ORIGIN OF THE NAME--CHOPTANK RIVER--TIME OF BIRTH--GENEALOGICAL TREES--MODE OF COUNTING TIME--NAMES OF GRANDPARENTS--THEIR POSITION--GRANDMOTHER ESPECIALLY ESTEEMED--"BORN TO GOOD LUCK"--SWEET POTATOES--SUPERSTITION--THE LOG CABIN--ITS CHARMS--SEPARATING CHILDREN--AUTHOR'S AUNTS--THEIR NAMES--FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF BEING A SLAVE--"OLD MASTER"--GRIEFS AND JOYS OF CHILDHOOD--COMPARATIVE HAPPINESS OF THE SLAVE-BOY AND THE SON OF A SLAVEHOLDER. Finally, upon a pretense that he could do nothing with her, (I use his own words,) he "set her adrift, to take care of herself." There is more truth in the saying, that slavery is a greater evil to the master than to the slave, than many, who utter it, suppose. . . Master Thomas seemed to be aware of my hopes and expectations concerning him. . The sight of the broad brim and the plain, Quaker dress, which met me at every turn, greatly increased my sense of freedom and security. On one of the coldest days of the whole month of January, 1834, I was ordered, at day break, to get a load of wood, from a forest about two miles from the, house. Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to be very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty.