Moses
Roper was
born a slave in Caswell County, North Carolina. His father was the
plantation owner and his mother one
of Roper's black slaves. Soon after he was born, Roper's wife tried
to kill Moses and he was only saved by the intervention of his grandmother.
Roper died six years later and Moses and his mother were sold to different
people. Moses became the property of a slave
trader who took him to Georgia. Being a mulatto,
Moses was difficult to sell and so he was left with a Mr. Steed, who
ran a boarding-house in Washington. After working as one of Steed's
house slave Moses was hired out to
a doctor and a tailor.
Eventually Moses was sold to a man called Gooch who owned a cotton
plantation in South Carolina. Roper made several attempts and
each time he was caught he was severely punished.
In August, 1831 Roper was successful and managed to find his mother
but soon afterwards he was recaptured and taken back to Gooch. This
time he received 200 lashes of the whip
and would have been killed but for Gooch's wife pleading for his life.
Gooch sold Roper and he became the property
of Marvel
Louis of Greenville, South Carolina, who employed him as a domestic
slave. Later he was transferred to a man called Beveridge who
owned three steamboats.
Roper worked as a steward on one of these boats and this enabled him
to escape.
Roper reached New York in August, 1834. After moving to Philadelphia
he published his autobiography, Adventures
and Escape of Moses Roper
(1838).
(1) Moses Roper, Adventures
and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
A
few months before I was born, my father married my mother's young
mistress. As soon as my father's wife heard of my birth, she sent
one of my mother's sisters to see whether I was white or black, and
when my aunt had seen me, she returned back as soon as she could,
and told her mistress that I was white, and resembled Mr. Roper very
much. Mr. Roper's wife being not pleased with this report, she got
a large club stick and knife, and hastened to the place in which my
mother was confined. She went into my mother's room with full intention
to murder me with her knife and club, but as she was going to stick
the knife into me, my grandmother happening to come in, caught the
knife and saved my life. But as well as I can recollect from what
my mother told me, my father sold her and myself soon after her confinement.
(2)
Moses Roper, Adventures and
Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
I
cannot recollect any thing that is worth notice till I was six or
seven years old. My mother being half white, and my father a white
man, I was at that time very white. Soon after I was six or seven
years of age, my mother's old master died, that is, my father's wife's
father. All his slaves had to be divided among the children. I have
mentioned before of my father disposing of me; I am not sure whether
he exchanged me and my mother for another slave or not, but think
it very likely he did exchange me with one of his wife's brothers
or sisters, because I remember when my mother's old master died, I
was living with my father's wife's brother-in-law, whose name was
Mr. Durham. My mother was drawn with the other slaves.
The way they divide
their slaves is this: they write the names of different slaves on
a small piece of paper, and put it into
a box, and let them all draw. I think that Mr. Durham drew my mother,
and Mr. Fowler drew me, so we were separated a considerable distance,
I cannot say how far. My resembling my father so very much, and being
whiter than the other slaves, caused me to be soon sold to what they
call a negro trader who took me to the southern states of America,
several hundred miles from my mother. As well as I can recollect,
I was then about six years old.
The trader, Mr. Michael, after travelling several hundred miles and
selling a good many of his slaves, found he could not sell me very
well (as I was so much whiter than the other slaves were) for he had
been trying several months - left me with a Mr. Sneed, who kept a
large boarding-house, who took me to wait at table and sell me if
he could.
(3) Moses
Roper, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
Mr. Gooch, the cotton planter, he purchased me at a town called Liberty
Hill, about three miles from his home. As soon as he got home, he
immediately put me on his cotton plantation to work, and
put me under overseers, gave me allowance of meat and bread with the
other slaves, which was not half enough for me to live upon, and very
laborious work. Here my heart was almost broke with grief at leaving
my fellow slaves. Mr. Gooch did not mind my grief, for he flogged
me nearly every day, and very severely. Mr. Gooch bought me for his
son-in-law, Mr. Hammans, about five miles from his residence. This
man had but two slaves besides myself; he treated me very kindly for
a week or two, but in summer, when cotton was ready to hoe, he gave
me task work connected with this department, which I could not get
done, not having worked on cotton farms before. When I failed in my
task, he commenced flogging me, and set me to work without any shirt
in the cotton field, in a very hot sun, in the month of July. In August,
Mr. Condell, his overseer, gave me a task
at pulling fodder.
Having finished my task before night, I left the
field; the rain came on, which soaked the fodder. On discovering this,
he threatened to flog me for not getting in the fodder before the
rain came. This was the first time I attempted to run away, knowing
that I should get a flogging. I was then between thirteen and fourteen
years of age. I ran away to the woods half naked; I was caught by
a slave-holder, who put me in Lancaster jail. When they put slaves
in jail, they advertise for their masters
to own them; but if the master does not claim his slave in six months
from the time of imprisonment, the slave is sold for jail fees.
When the slave runs away, the master
always adopts a more rigorous system of flogging; this was the case
in the present instance. After this, having determined from my youth
to gain my freedom, I made several attempts, was caught and got a
severe flogging of one hundred lashes each time. Mr. Hammans was a
very severe and cruel master, and his wife still worse; she used to
tie me up and flog me while naked.
(4) Moses
Roper made several attempts trying to escape from his master. He wrote
about the punishment he received in Adventures and Escape of Moses
Roper (1838)
Mr. Gooch then obtained the assistance of another
slave-holder, and tied me up in his blacksmith's shop, and gave me
fifty lashes with a cow-hide. He then put a long chain, weighing twenty-five
pounds, round my neck, and sent me into a field, into which he followed
me with the cow-hide, intending to set his slaves to flog me again.
Knowing this, and dreading to suffer again in this way, I gave him
the slip, and got out of his sight, he having stopped to speak with
the other slave-holder.
I got to a canal on the Catarba River,
on the banks of which, and near to a lock, I procured a stone and
a piece of iron, with which I forced the ring off my chain, and got
it off, and then crossed the river, and walked about twenty miles,
when I fell in with a slave-holder named Ballad, who had married the
sister of Mr. Hammans. I knew that he was not so cruel as Mr. Gooch,
and, therefore, begged of him to buy me. Mr. Ballad, who was one of
the best planters in the neighbourhood, said, that he was not able
to buy me, and stated, that he was obliged to take me back to my master,
on account of the heavy fine attaching to a man harbouring a slave.
Mr. Ballad proceeded to take me back. As we came
in sight of Mr. Gooch's, all the treatment that I had met with there
came forcibly upon my mind, the powerful influence of which is beyond
description. On my knees, with tears in my eyes, with terror in my
countenance, and fervency in all my features, I implored Mr. Ballad
to buy me, but he again refused, and I was taken back to my dreaded
and cruel master.
Having reached Mr. Gooch's, he proceeded to punish
me. This he did by first tying my wrists together, and placing them
over the knees ; he then put a stick through, under my knees and over
my arms, and having thus secured my arms, he proceeded to flog me,
and gave me five hundred lashes on my bare back. This may appear incredible,
but the marks which they left at present remain on my body, a standing
testimony to the truth of this statement of his severity. He then
chained me down in a log-pen with a 40 lb. chain, and made me lie
on the damp earth all night. In the morning after his breakfast he
came to me, and without giving me any breakfast, tied me to a large
heavy barrow, which is usually drawn by a horse, and made me drag
it to the cotton field for the horse to use in the field. Thus, the
reader will see, that it was of no possible use to my master to make
me drag it to the field, and not through it; his cruelty went so far
as actually to make me the slave of his horse, and thus to degrade
me.
He then flogged me again, and set me to work in
the corn field the whole of that day, and at night chained me down
in the log-pen as before. The next morning he took me to the cotton
field, and gave me a third flogging, and set me to hoe cotton. At
this time I was dreadfully sore and weak with the repeated floggings
and harsh treatment I had endured. He put me under a black man with
orders, that if I did not keep my row up in hoeing with this man,
he was to flog me. The reader must recollect here, that not being
used to this kind of work, having been a domestic slave, it was quite
impossible for me to keep up with him, and, therefore, I was repeatedly
flogged during the day.
(5) Moses
Roper, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
Mr. Gooch had a female slave about eighteen
years old, who also had been a domestic slave, and through not being
able to fulfill her task, had run away; which slave he was at this
time punishing for that offence. On the third day, he chained me to
this female slave, with a large chain of 40 lbs. weight round the
neck. It was most harrowing to my feelings thus to be chained to a
young female slave, for whom I would rather have suffered a hundred
lashes than she should have been thus treated. He kept me chained
to her during the week, and repeatedly flogged us both while thus
chained together, and forced us to keep up with the other slaves,
although retarded by the heavy weight of the log-chain.
Here again words are insufficient to describe the misery which possessed
both body and mind whilst under this treatment, and which was most
dreadfully increased by the sympathy which I felt for my poor degraded
fellow sufferer. On the Friday morning, I entreated my master to set
me free from my chains, and promised him to do the task which was
given me, and more if possible, if he would desist from flogging me.
This he refused to do until Saturday night, when he did set me free.
This must rather be ascribed to his own interest in preserving me
from death, as it was very evident I could no longer have survived
under such treatment.
(6) Moses
Roper, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
A large farmer, Colonel M'Quiller,
in Cashaw County, South Carolina, was in the habit of driving nails
into a hogshead so as to leave the point of the nail just protruding
in the inside of the cask. Into this he used to put his slaves for
punishment, and roll them down a very long and steep hill. I have
heard from several slaves, though I had no means of ascertaining the
truth of the statement, that in this way he killed six or seven of
his slaves. This plan was first adopted by a Mr. Perry, who lived
on the Catarba River, and has since been adopted by several planters.
Another was that of a young lad, who had been hired by Mr. Bell, a
member of a Methodist church, to hoe three quarters of an acre of
cotton per day. Having been brought up as a domestic slave, he was
not able to accomplish the task assigned to him. On the Saturday night,
he left three or four rows to do on the
Sunday; on the same night it rained very hard, by
which the master could tell that he had done some of the rows on Sunday.
On Monday his master took and tied him up to a tree in the field,
and kept him there the whole of that day, and flogged him at intervals.
At night, when he was taken down, he was so weak that he could not
get home, having a mile to go. Two white men, who were employed by
Mr. Bell, put him on a horse, took him home, and threw him down on
the kitchen floor, while they proceeded to their supper. In a little
time they heard some deep groans proceeding from the kitchen; they
went to see him die; he had groaned his last.
Thus, Mr. Bell flogged this poor boy even to death;
for what ? for breaking the Sabbath, when he (his master) had set
him a task on Saturday which it was not possible for him to do, and
which, if he did not do, no mercy would be extended towards him. So
much for the regard of this Methodist for the observance of the Sabbath.
The general custom in this respect is, that if a man kills his own
slave, no notice is taken of it by the civil functionaries; but if
a man kills a slave belonging to another master, he is compelled to
pay the worth of the slave. In this case, a jury met, returned a verdict
of "Wilful murder" against this man, and ordered him to
pay the value. Mr. Bell was unable to do this, but a Mr. Cunningham
paid the debt, and took this Mr. Bell, with this recommendation for
cruelty, to be his overseer.
(7) Moses
Roper, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
After travelling forty miles I arrived
at the estate of Mr. Crawford, in North Carolina, Mecklinburgh county.
Having formerly heard people talk about the free states, I determined
upon going thither, and if possible, in my way, to find out my poor
mother, who was in slavery several hundred miles from
Chester; but the hope of doing the latter was very faint, and, even
if I did, it was not likely that she would know me, having been separated
from her when between five and six years old.
The first night I slept in a barn upon Mr.
Crawford's estate, and, having overslept myself, was awoke by Mr.
Crawford's overseer, upon which I was dreadfully frightened. He asked
me what I was doing there? I made no reply to him then, and he making
sure that he had secured a runaway slave, did not press me for an
answer. On my way to his house, however, I made up the following story,
which I told him in the presence of his wife: I said, that I had been
bound to a very cruel master when I was a little boy, and that having
been treated very badly, I wanted to get home to see my mother. He
would not believe my story, on account of my hair being curly and
woolly, which led him to conclude I was possessed of enslaved blood.
The overseer's wife, however, who seemed much interested in me, said
she did not think I was of African origin, and that she had seen white
men still darker than me. Her persuasion prevailed ; and, after the
overseer had given me as much buttermilk as I could drink, and something
to eat, which was very acceptable, having had nothing for two days,
I set off for Charlotte in North Carolina, the largest town in the
county.
(8) Moses
Roper, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)
There are several circumstances which
occurred on this estate while I was there, relative to other slaves,
which it may be interesting to mention. Hardly a day ever passed without
some one being flogged. To one of his female slaves he had given a
dose of castor oil and salts together, as much as she could take;
he then got a box, about six feet by two and a half, and one and a
half feet deep; he put this slave under the box, and made the men
fetch as many stones as they could get, and put them on the top of
it; under this she was made to stay all night. I believe, that if
he had given this slave one, he had given her three thousand lashes.
Mr. Gooch was a member of a Baptist church. His slaves, thinking him
a very bad sample of what a professing Christian ought to be, would
not join the connection he belonged to, thinking they must be a very
bad set of people; there were many of them members of the Methodist
church. On Sunday, the slaves can only go to church at the will of
their master, when he gives them a pass for the time they are to be
out. If they are found by the patrol after the time to which their
pass extends, they are severely flogged.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
