Plantation
owners in America
had complete freedom to buy and sell slaves. State laws gave slave
marriages no legal protection and in these transactions husbands could
be separated from their wives and children from their mothers. In
his autobiography, Frederick Douglass
claimed that in the part of Maryland where he was born: "to
part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently,
before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken
from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off."
The owner of Harriet Jacobs used the threat
of selling her children as a means of controlling her behaviour. In
her book, Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl,
Jacobs described how one mother, who had just witnessed seven of her
children being sold at a slave-market: "She
begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this
he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell them, one
by one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met that mother
in the street, and her wild, haggard face lives to-day in my mind.
She wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, 'Gone! All gone! Why
don't God kill me?' I had no words wherewith to comfort her."
A study of slave records by the Freedmen's
Bureau of 2,888 slave marriages in Mississippi (1,225), Tennessee
(1,123) and Louisiana (540), revealled that over 32 per cent of marriages
were dissolved by masters as a result of slaves being sold away from
the family home.
(1)
Lewis
Clarke, Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clark (1845)
The death of a large owner is the
occasion usually of many families being broken up. Bankruptcy is another
cause of separation, and the hard-heartedness of a majority of slaveholders
another and a more fruitful cause than either or all the rest. Generally
there is but little more scruple about separating families than there
is with a man who keeps sheep in selling off the lambs in the fall.
On one plantation where I lived, there was an old slave named Paris.
He was from fifty to sixty years old, and a very honest and apparently
a pious slave. A slave-trader came along one day, gathering hands
for the South. The old master ordered the waiter or coachman to take
Paris into the back room, pluck out all his grey hairs, rub his face
with a greasy towel, and then had him brought forward and sold for
a young man. His wife consented to go with him, upon a promise from
the trader that they should be sold together, with their youngest
child which she carried in her arms. They left two behind them, who
were only from four to six or eight years of age. The speculator collected
his drove, started for the market, and before he left the State he
sold that infant child to pay one of his tavern bills, and took the
balance in cash. This was the news which came back to us, and was
never disputed.
I saw one slave mother, named Lucy, with seven children, put up by
an administrator for sale. At first the mother and three small children
were put up together. The purchasers objected: one says, I want the
woman and the babe, but not the other children; another says, I want
that little girl; and another, I want the boy. Well, says the Administrator,
I must let you have them to the best advantage. So the children were
taken away ; the mother and infant were first sold, then child after
child - the mother looking on in perfect agony; and as one child after
another came down from the auction block, they would run, and cling
weeping to her clothes. The poor mother stood, till nature gave way;
she fainted and fell, with her child in her arms. When she came to,
she moaned woefully, and prayed that she might die, to be relieved
from her sufferings.
(2)
Harriet
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew
that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The
children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was
bought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all
far away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take
them; this he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell
them, one by one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met
that mother in the street, and her wild, haggard face lives to-day
in my mind. She wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, "Gone!
All gone! Why don't God kill me?" I had no words wherewith to
comfort her. Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly occurrence.
(3)
William Box Brown,
Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown (1851)
I had not been many hours at my work, when I was informed that my
wife and children were taken from their home, sent to the auction
mart and sold, and then lay in prison ready to start away the next
day for North Carolina with the man who had purchased them. I cannot
express, in language, what were my feelings on this occasion.
I received a message, that if I wished to see my wife and children,
and bid them the last farewell, I could do so, by taking my stand
on the street where they were all to pass on their way for North Carolina.
I quickly availed myself of this information, and placed myself by
the side of a street, and soon had the melancholy satisfaction of
witnessing the approach of a gang of slaves, amounting to three hundred
and fifty in number, marching under the direction of a Methodist minister,
by whom they were purchased, and amongst which slaves were my wife
and children.
I stood in the midst of many who, like myself, were mourning the loss
of friends and relations and had come there to obtain one parting
look at those whose company they but a short time before had imagined
they should always enjoy, but who were, without any regard to their
own wills, now driven by the tyrant's voice and the smart of the whip
on their way to another scene of toil, and, to them, another land
of sorrow in a far off southern country.
These beings were marched with ropes about their necks, and staples
on their arms, and, although in that respect the scene was no very
novel one to me, yet the peculiarity of my own circumstances made
it assume the appearance of unusual horror. This train of beings was
accompanied by a number of waggons loaded with little children of
many different families, which as they appeared rent the air with
their shrieks and cries and vain endeavors to resist the separation
which was thus forced upon them, and the cords with which they were
thus bound; but what should I now see in the very foremost waggon
but a little child looking towards me and pitifully calling, father!
father! This was my eldest child, and I was obliged to look upon it
for the last time that I should, perhaps, ever see it again in life;
if it had been going to the grave and this gloomy procession had been
about to return its body to the dust from whence it sprang, whence
its soul had taken its departure for the land of spirits, my grief
would have been nothing in comparison to what I then felt; for then
I could have reflected that its sufferings were over and that it would
never again require nor look for a father's care.
(4)
Moses Grandy, Life of a Slave
(1843)
The
master, Billy Grandy, whose slave I was born, was a hard-drinking
man: he sold away many slaves. I remember four sisters and four brothers;
my mother had more children, but they were dead or sold away before
I can remember. I was the youngest. I remember well
my mother often hid us all in the woods, to prevent master selling
us. When we wanted water, she sought for it in any hole or puddle
formed by falling trees or otherwise: it was often full of tadpoles
and insects: she strained it, and gave it round to each of us in the
hollow of her hand. For food, she gathered berries in the woods, got
potatoes, raw corn, etc.
I married a slave belonging to Enoch Sawyer, who had been so hard
a master to me. I left her at home, (that is, at his house,) one Thursday
morning, when we had been married about eight months. She was well,
and seemed likely to be so: we were nicely getting together our little
necessaries. On the Friday, as I was at work as usual with the boats,
I heard a noise behind me, on the road which ran by the side of the
canal: I turned to look, and saw a gang of slaves coming. When they
came up to me, one of them cried out, "Moses, my dear!"
I wondered who among them should know me, and found it was my wife.
She cried out to me, "I am gone." I was struck with consternation.
Mr. Rogerson was with them, on his horse, armed with pistols. I said
to him, "for God's sake, have you bought my wife?" He said
he had; when I asked him what she had done; he said she had done nothing,
but that her master wanted money.
He drew out a pistol, and said that if I went near the waggon on which
she was, he would shoot me. I asked for leave to shake hands with
her, which he refused, but said I might stand at a distance and talk
with her. My heart was so full, that I could say very little. I asked
leave to give her a dram: he told Mr. Burgess, the man who was with
him, to get down and carry it to her. I gave her the little money
I had in my pocket, and bid her farewell. I have never seen or heard
of her from that day to this. I loved her as I loved my life.
(5)
Charles Ball, was sold when he was four
years old. He wrote about his experiences in The Life of an American
Slave (1859)
My
mother had several children, and they were sold upon master's death
to separate purchasers. She was sold, my father told me, to a Georgia
trader. I, of all her children, was the only one left in Maryland.
When sold I was naked, never having had on clothes in my life, but
my new master gave me a child's frock, belonging to one of his own
children. After he had purchased me, he dressed me in this garment,
took me before him on his horse, and started home; but my poor mother,
when she saw me leaving her for the last time, ran after me, took
me down from the horse, clasped me in her arms, and wept loudly and
bitterly over me.
My master seemed to pity her; and endeavored to soothe her distress
by telling her that he would be a good master to me, and that I should
not want anything. She then, still holding me in her arms, walked
along the road beside the horse as he moved slowly, and earnestly
and imploringly besought my master to buy her and the rest of her
children, and not permit them to be carried away by the negro buyers;
but whilst thus entreating him to save her and her family, the slave-driver,
who had first bought her, came running in pursuit of her with a raw-hide
in his hand. When he overtook us, he told her he was her master now,
and ordered her to give that little negro to its owner, and come back
with him.
My mother then turned to him and cried, "Oh, master, do not take
me from my child!" Without making any reply, he gave her two
or three heavy blows on the shoulders with his raw-hide, snatched
me from her arms, handed me to my master, and seizing her by one arm,
dragged her back towards the place of sale. My master then quickened
the pace of his horse; and as we advanced, the cries of my poor parent
became more and more indistinct - at length they died away in the
distance, and I never again heard the voice of my poor mother.
(6)
Charles Ball
was married and living in Maryland when he was sold to a master in
South Carolina.
I was now a slave in South Carolina, and had no hope of ever again
seeing my wife and children. I had at times serious thoughts of suicide
so great was my anguish. If I could have got a rope I should have
hanged myself at Lancaster. The thought of my wife and children I
had been torn from in Maryland, and the dreadful undefined future
which was before me, came near driving me mad. It was long after midnight
before I fell asleep, but the most pleasant dream, succeeded to these
sorrowful forebodings. I thought I had escaped my master, and through
great difficulties made my way back to Maryland, and was again in
my wife's cabin with my little children on my lap. Every object was
so vividly impressed on my mind in this dream, that when I awoke,
a firm conviction settled upon my mind, that by some means, at present
incomprehensible to me, I should yet again embrace my wife, and caress
my children in their humble dwelling.
Early in the morning, our master called us up and distributed to each
of the party a cake made of corn-meal and a small piece of bacon.
On our journey, we had only eaten twice a day, and had not received
breakfast until about nine o'clock; but he said this morning meal
was given to welcome us to South Carolina. He then addressed us all,
and told us we might now give up all hope of ever returning to the
places of our nativity; as it would be impossible for us to pass through
the States of North Carolina and Virginia, without being taken up
and sent back. He further advised us to make ourselves contented,
as he would take us to Georgia, a far better country than any we had
seen; and where we would be able to live in the greatest abundance.
About sunrise we took up our march on the road to Columbia, as we
were told. Hitherto our master had not offered to sell any of us,
and had even refused to stop to talk to any one on the subject of
our sale, although he had several times been addressed on this point,
before we reached Lancaster; but soon after we departed from this
village, we were overtaken on the road by a man on horseback, who
accosted our driver by asking him if his niggars were for sale. The
latter replied, that he believed he would not sell any yet, as he
was on his way to Georgia, and cotton being now much in demand, he
expected to obtain high prices for us from persons who were going
to settle in the new purchase. He, however, contrary to his custom,
ordered us to stop, and told the stranger he might look at us, and
that he would find us as fine a lot of hands as were ever imported
into the country - that we were all prime property, and he had no
doubt would command his own prices in Georgia.
The
stranger, who was a thin, weather-beaten, sunburned figure, then said,
he wanted a couple of breeding wenches, and would give as much for
them as they would bring in Georgia. He then walked along our line,
as we stood chained together, and looked at the whole of us - then
turning to the women; asked the prices of the two pregnant ones. Our
master replied, that these were two of the best breeding-wenches in
all Maryland - that one was twenty-two, and the other only nineteen
- that the first was already the mother of seven children, and the
other of four - that he had himself seen the children at the time
he bought their mothers - and that such wenches would be cheap at
a thousand dollars each; but as they were not able to keep up with
the gang, he would take twelve hundred dollars for the two.
(7)
Lewis
Clarke,
Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clark (1845)
After I had lived with Mrs. Banton three or four years I was put to
spinning hemp, flax and tow, on an old fashioned foot wheel. There
were four or five slaves at this business a good part of the time.
We were kept at our work from daylight to dark in summer, from long
before day to nine or ten o'clock in the evening in winter.
But all my severe labor, bitter and cruel punishments for these ten
years of captivity with this worse than Arab family, all these were
as nothing to the sufferings experienced by being separated from my
mother, brothers and sisters; the same things, with them near to sympathize
with me, to hear my story of sorrow, would have been comparatively
tolerable. They were distant only about thirty miles, and yet in ten
long, lonely years of childhood, I was only permitted to see them
three times.
My mother occasionally found an opportunity to send me some token
of remembrance and affection, a sugar plum or an apple, but I scarcely
ever ate them-- they were laid up and handled and wept over till they
wasted away in my hand. My thoughts continually by day and my dreams
by night were of mother and home, and the horror experienced in the
morning, when I awoke and behold it was a dream, is beyond the power
of language to describe.
(8)
Francis
Fredric, Fifty Years of Slavery (1863)
I
was about twenty-eight or thirty years of age when my old master was
seized with a fever. He was upwards of seventy years of age, and,
prior to this, had been a healthy man. When he was taken ill, the
family wished to send for a doctor. "No," he said, "I
know it is of no use; I shall die."
My young master now was about twenty-four or twenty-five years of
age; he did not seem to mourn much for his lost father, but said,
"You slaves have been living upon white bread, but I will soon
teach you something different from that. You shall now have the treatment
proper for niggers. I have been wishing for some time to tan your
hides for you." Of course his discourse was interlarded with
oaths and curses, with which I cannot pollute my page. I soon began
to wish that I was a field-hand, for day by day he was drunk and hanging
about the kitchen.
I began to have a terrible life of it. A few years before his father's
death, he had led a riotous, dissipated life, losing money by gambling,
and then borrowing. All his neighbours were astonished at the amount
of his debts, for the sheriff's officers were constantly on the premises.
No doubt the state of his circumstances made him drink more.
Aunt Aggy was the first slave sold; she had a little boy eight or
nine years of age, and when she was driven to the chained gang on
the road he ran after her, crying, "Mother, mother; oh my mother."
My master ordered one of the slaves to fetch him the waggon whip.
He took it and lashed the poor little fellow, round the neck and legs
until he fell down, then he flogged him until he got up again, and
still my master cut at him until the boy shrieked out dreadfully,
writhing in agony, the blood streaming down his little legs. His mother
was driven off with the gang, and her little boy never saw her more.
In three or four weeks after this, a "trader" was seen talking
to my master. The slaves were in a state of consternation, saying,
"Is it me? Is it me? Who'll go next?" One of the slaves
said, "See, they are selling the pigs to go to Virginia. They
don't seem to care, but we can't be like pigs, we can't help thinking
about our wives and children."
The slaves were all taking their dinners in their cabins about two
o'clock. My master, the "trader," and three other white
men walked up to the cabins, and entered one of them. My master pointed
first to one, and then to another, and three were immediately handcuffed,
and made to stand out in the yard. One of the slaves sold had a wife
and five children on another plantation; another slave had a wife
and three children; and the other had a wife and one child. My master,
the dealer, and the others then went into another large cabin, where
there were eight or nine women feeding the children with Indian-meal-broth.
My master said, "Take your pick of the women."
The "trader" said, "I'll give you 800 dollars for that
one." My master said, "I'll take it." The "trader,"
touching her with a long cane he had in his hand, said, "Walk
yourself out here, and stand with those men." She jumped up and
laid her child out of her arms in an old board-cradle, and walked
to the chained men. My master said, "Take your pick of the rest."
(9)
Walter Hawkins, From Slavery to
Bishopric (1891)
While smarting under this sense of the injustice of the institution
of slavery, the son of Mr. Robinson, who had followed his father's
footsteps in drinking and gambling, came home one day hard up for
cash, and, not knowing any better way to raise money to satisfy his
passions, resolved on selling Walter, whom he called, saying: "Do
you want a master?" Of course, he had no other choice but to
answer: "Yes, sir". So he took the young man to a slave-dealer
who bought and sold slaves to owners in the South. The dealer and
southern plantations brought to his mind all the terrible things he
had heard about those parts, and well he might, for the law by which
slaves were governed in the Carolinas was a provincial law as old
as 1740, but was made perpetual in 1783. By this law every Negro was
presumed a slave unless the contrary appeared. Any person who murdered
a slave was to pay £100, or £14 if he cut out the tongue
of a slave. Any white man meeting seven slaves together on a high
road could give them twenty lashes each, and no man could teach a
slave to write under a penalty of £100 currency.
Walter stood by while the bargain was being made, and heard the dealer
offer nine hundred dollars for his body. Speaking to Walter, he said:
"Can you plough and grub? Can you do general work on the farm?"
The poor fellow could do no more than please his master by answering
"yes" to all his questions, which pleased both the dealer
and young Robinson, for whose benefit all the lies were told. The
bargain being struck, an arrangement was made for Walter to re-appear
the next morning at seven o'clock; at the same time, he was to bid
good-bye to his friends; but be sure, said he, that you are on the
spot at seven.
Resolved to flee, he went straight to his old father and told him
that he was sold. "Sold!" exclaimed the old man; "to
whom?" "Why, to old Cidley, the Negro-dealer." After
a pause the old man said: "They will sell my last child,"
and burst into tears, weeping like a child. He talked and wept with
his son until he bathed the floor at his feet. At last he said: "Boy,
run away". "I will," responded Walter. But now his
troubles began, for he did not know, and the old man could not tell
him, where to go any distance beyond ten miles in either direction
from where they stood, as it was a part of the policy of slavery to
keep them in ignorance as to distance.
(10)
Elizabeth
Keckley, Thirty Years a Slave (1868)
When I was about seven years old I witnessed, for the first time,
the sale of a human being. We were living at Prince Edward, in Virginia,
and master had just purchased his hogs for the winter, for which he
was unable to pay in full. To escape from his embarrassment it was
necessary to sell one of the slaves. Little Joe, the son of the cook,
was selected as the victim. His mother was ordered to dress him up
in his Sunday clothes, and send him to the house. He came in with
a bright face, was placed in the scales, and was sold, like the hogs,
at so much per pound. His mother was kept in ignorance of the transaction,
but her suspicions were aroused. When her son started for Petersburgh
in the wagon, the truth began to dawn upon her mind, and she
pleaded piteously that her boy should not be taken from her; but master
quieted her by telling her that he was simply going to town with the
wagon, and would be back in the morning.
Morning came, but little Joe did not return to his mother. Morning
after morning passed, and the mother went down to the grave without
ever seeing her child again. One day she was whipped for grieving
for her lost boy. Colonel Burwell never liked to see one of his slaves
wear a sorrowful face, and those who offended in this particular way
were always punished. Alas! the sunny face of the slave is not always
an indication of sunshine in the heart. Colonel Burwell at one time
owned about seventy slaves, all of which were sold, and in a majority
of instances wives were separated from husbands and children from
their parents.
(11)
Bethany
Veney, A Slave Woman (1889)
Master Fletcher died. I must have been about nine years old at that
time. Master's children consisted of five daughters and two
sons. As usual in such cases, an inventory was
taken of his property (all of which nearly was in slaves), and, being
apportioned in shares, lots were drawn, and, as might chance, we fell
to our several masters and mistresses. My sister Matilda and
myself were drawn by the eldest daughter, Miss Lucy. My grandmother
had begged hard to be reckoned with me, but she and Uncle Peter fell
to Miss Nasenath. I was put out with an old woman, who gave me my
food and clothes for whatever work I could do for her. She was kind
to me, as I then counted kindness, never whipping me or starving me;
but it was not what a free-born white child would have found comforting
or needful.
(12)
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.
(13)
Mary
Prince, The History of Mary Prince,
A West Indian Slave (1831)
I staid at Mrs. Pruden's
about three months after this; I was then sent back to Mr. Williams
to be sold. Oh, that was a sad sad time! I recollect the day well.
Mrs. Pruden came to me and said, "Mary, you will have to go home
directly; your master is going to be married, and he means to sell
you and two of your sisters to raise money for the wedding."
Hearing this I burst out a crying, though I was then far from being
sensible of the full weight of my misfortune, or of the misery that
waited for me. Besides, I did not like to leave Mrs. Pruden, and the
dear baby, who had grown very fond of me. For some time I could scarcely
believe that Mrs. Pruden was in earnest, till I received orders for
my immediate return.
Dear Miss Fanny! how she
cried at parting with me, whilst I kissed and hugged the baby, thinking
I should never see him again. I left Mrs. Pruden's, and walked home
with a heart full of sorrow. The idea of being sold away from my mother
and Miss Betsey was so frightful, that I dared not trust myself to
think about it. We had been bought of Mr. Myners, as I have mentioned,
by Miss Betsey's grandfather, and given to her, so that we were by
right her property, and I never thought we should be separated or
sold away from her.
When I reached the house,
I went in directly to Miss Betsey. I found her in great distress;
and she cried out as soon as she saw me, "Oh, Mary! my father
is going to sell you all to raise money to marry that wicked woman.
You are my slaves, and he has no right to sell you; but it is all
to please her." She then told me that my mother was living with
her father's sister at a house close by, and I went there to see her.
It was a sorrowful meeting; and we lamented with a great and sore
crying our unfortunate situation. "Here comes one of my poor
picaninnies!" she said, the moment I came in, "one of the
poor slave-brood who are to be sold tomorrow."
Oh dear! I cannot bear
to think of that day, - it is too much - It recalls the great grief
that filled my heart, and the woeful thoughts that passed to and fro
through my mind, whilst listening to the pitiful words of my poor
mother, weeping for the loss of her children. I wish I could find
words to tell you all I then felt and suffered. The great God above
alone knows the thoughts of the poor slave's heart, and the bitter
pains which follow such separations as these. All that we love taken
away from us - Oh, it is sad, sad! and sore to be borne! - I got no
sleep that night for thinking of the morrow; and dear Miss Betsey
was scarcely less distressed. She could not bear to part with her
old playmates, and she cried sore and would not be pacified.
The black morning at length
came; it came too soon for my poor mother and us. Whilst she was putting
on us the new osnaburgs in which we were to be sold, she said, in
a sorrowful voice, (I shall never forget it!) "See, I am shrouding
my poor children; what a task for a mother!" - She then called
Miss Betsey to take leave of us. "I am going to carry my little
chickens to market," (these were her very words.) "take
your last look of them: may be you will see them no more." "Oh,
my poor slaves! my own slaves!" said dear Miss Betsey, "you
belong to me: and it grieves my heart to part with you." - Miss
Betsey kissed us all, and, when she left us, my mother called the
rest of the slaves to bid us good bye. One of them, a woman named
Moll, came with her infant in her arms. "Ay!" said my mother,
seeing her turn away and look at her child with the tears in her eyes,
"your turn will come next." The slaves could say nothing
to comfort us; they could only weep and lament with us. When I left
my dear little brothers and the house in which I had been brought
up, I thought my heart would burst.
Our mother, weeping as
she went, called me away with the children Hannah and Dinah, and we
took the road that led to Hamble Town, which we reached about four
o'clock in the afternoon. We followed my mother to the market-place,
where she placed us in a row against a large house, with our backs
to the wall and our arms folded across our breasts. I, as the eldest,
stood first, Hannah next to me, then Dinah; and our mother stood beside,
crying over us. My heart throbbed with grief and terror so violently,
that I pressed my hands quite tightly across my breast, but I could
not keep it still, and it continued to leap as though it would burst
out of my body. But who cared for that? Did one of the many bystanders,
who were looking at us so carelessly, think of the pain that wrung
the hearts of the Negro woman and her young ones? No, no! They were
not all bad, I dare say, but slavery hardens white people's hearts
towards the blacks; and many of them were not slow to make their remarks
upon us aloud, without regard to our grief - though their light words
fell like cayenne on the fresh wounds of our hearts. Oh those white
people have small hearts who can only feel for themselves.
At length the vendue master,
who was to offer us for sale like sheep or cattle, arrived, and asked
my mother which was the eldest. She said nothing, but pointed to me.
He took me by the hand, and led me out into the middle of the street,
and, turning me slowly round, exposed me to the view of those who
attended the vendue. I was soon surrounded by strange men, who examined
and handled me in the same manner that a butcher would a calf or a
lamb he was about to purchase, and who talked about my shape and size
in like words - as if I could no more understand their meaning than
the dumb beasts. I was then put up to sale. The bidding commenced
at a few pounds, and gradually rose to fifty-seven, when I was knocked
down to the highest bidder; and the people who stood by said that
I had fetched a great sum for so young a slave.
I then saw my sisters led
forth, and sold to different owners: so that we had not the sad satisfaction
of being partners in bondage. When the sale was over, my mother hugged
and kissed us, and mourned over us, begging of us to keep up a good
heart, and do our duty to our new masters. It was a sad parting; one
went one way, one another, and our poor mammy went home with nothing.
(14)
Julia
Brown , aged 85, Atlanta, Georgia, interviewed as part of the Federal
Writers Project in 1937.
Slaves was treated in
most cases like cattle. A man went about the country buying up slaves
like baying up cattle and the like, and he was called a "speculator."
Then he would sell them to the highest bidder. Oh! it was pitiful
to see children taken from their mothers' breasts, mothers sold, husbands
sold from wives. One woman he was to buy had a baby, and of course
the baby come before he bought her and he wouldn't buy the baby,
said he hadn't bargained to buy the baby, too, and he just wouldn't.
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