# The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 7

Contents
CHAPTER VII.
It would be irksome to myself, and tedious to the reader, to enter into a minute detail of all the miserable and monotonous incidents that made up my life at this time. ‘The last chapter is a specimen, from which it may be judged, what sort of pleasures I enjoyed. ‘They may be summed up in a few words; and the single sentence which embraces this part of my history, might suffice to describe the whole lives of many thousand Americans. I was hard worked, ill fed, and well whipped. Mr Stubbs having once begun with me, did not suffer me to get over the effects of one flogging before he inflicted another ; and I have some marks of his about me, which I expect to carry to the grave. All this time he assured me, that what he did was only for my own good; and he swore that he would never give over till he had lashed my cursed insolence out of me.
​The present began to grow intolerable; — and what hope for the Sits has the slave? I wished for death; nor do I know to what desperate counsels I might have been driven, when one of those changes, to which a slave is ever exposed, but over which he can exercise no control, afforded me some temporary relief from my distresses.
Colonel Moore, by the sudden death of a relation, became heir to a large property in South Carolina. But the person deceased had left a will, about which there was some dispute, which had every appearance of ending in a lawsuit, The matter required colonel Moore's personal attention; and he had lately set out for Charleston, and had taken with him several of the servants. One or two also had recently died; and Mrs Moore, soon after her husband's departure, sent for me to assist in filling up the gap which had been made in her domestic establishment.
I was truly happy at the change. I knew Mrs Moore to be a lady, who would never insult or trample on a servant, even though he were a slave — unless she happened to be very much out of humor, an unfortunate occurrence, which in her case, did not happen oftener than once or twice a week — except indeed in the very warm weather, when the fit sometimes lasted the whole week through.
Besides, I hoped that the recollection of my fond and faithful attachment to her younger son, who had always been her favorite, would secure me some kindness at her hands. Nor was I mistaken. The contrast of my new situation, with the tyranny of Mr Stubbs, gave it almost the color of happiness. I regained my cheerfulness, and my buoyant spirits. I was too wise, or rather this new influx of cheerfulness made me too thoughtless, to trouble myself about the future; and satisfied with the temporary relief I experienced, I ceased to brood over the miseries of my condition.
About this time, Miss Caroline, colonel Moore's eldest daughter, returned from Baltimore, where she had been living for several years with an aunt, who superintended her education. She was but an ordinary girl, without much grace or beauty; but her maid Cassy, who had formerly ​been my play-fellow, and who returned a woman, though she had left us a child, possessed a high degree of both.
I learned from one of my fellow servants, that she was the daughter of colonel Moore, by a female slave, who for a year or two had shared her master's favor jointly with my mother, but who had died many years since, leaving Cassy an infant. Her mother was said to have been a great beauty, and a very dangerous rival of mine.
So far as regarded personal charms, Cassy was not unworthy of her parentage, either on the father's or the mother's side. She was not tall, but the grace and elegance of her figure could not be surpassed; and the elastic vivacity of all her movements afforded a model, which her indolent and languid mistress, who did nothing but loll all day upon a sofa, might have imitated with advantage. The clear soft olive of her complexion, brightening in either cheek to a rich red, was certainly more pleasing than the sickly, sallow hue, so common or rather so universal, among the patrician beauties of lower Virginia; and she could boast a pair of eyes, which for brilliancy and expression, I have never seen surpassed.
At this time, I prided myself upon my color, as much as any Virginian of them all; and although I had found by a bitter experience, that a slave, whether white or black, is still a slave, and that the master, heedless of his victim's complexion, handles the whip, with perfect impartiality; — still, like my poor mother, I thought myself of a superior caste, and would have felt it a degradation, to put myself on a level with those a few shades darker than myself. This silly pride had kept me from forming intimacies with the other servants, either male or female; for I was decidedly whiter than any of them. It had too, justly enough, exposed me to an ill will, of which I had more than once felt the consequences, but which had not yet wholly cured me of my folly.
Cassy had pay? more African blood than I; but this was a point, however weighty and important I had at first esteemed it, which, as I became more acquainted with her, seemed continually of less consequence, and soon disappeared entirely from my thoughts. We were much together; ​and her beauty, vivacity, and good humor, made every day a stronger impression upon me. I found myself in love before I had thought of it; and presently I discovered that my affection was not unrequited.
Cassy was one of nature's children, and she had never learned those arts of coquetry, often as skilfully practised by the maid as the mistress, by which courtships are protracted. We loved; and before long, we talked of marriage. Cassy consulted her mistress; and the answer was favorable. Mrs Moore listened with equal readiness to me. Women are never happier, than when they have an opportunity to dabble in match-making; nor does even the humble condition of the parties quite deprive the business of its fascination.
It was determined that our marriage, should be a little festival among the servants. The coming Sunday was fixed on as the day; and a Methodist clergyman, who happened to have wandered into the neighborhood, readily undertook to perform the ceremony. This part of his office, I suppose, he would have performed for any body; but he undertook it the more readily for us, because Cassy while at Baltimore, had become a member of the Methodist Society.
I was well pleased with all this; for it seemed to give to our union something of that solemnity, which properly belonged to it.-In general, marriage among American slaves, is treated as a matter of very little moment. It is a mere temporary union, contracted without ceremony, not recognized by the laws, little or not at all regarded by the masters, and of course, often but lightly esteemed by the parties. The recollection that the husband may, any day, be sold into Louisiana, and the wife into Georgia, holds out but a slight inducement to draw tight the bonds of connubial intercourse; and the certainty that the fruits of their marriage, the children of their love, are to be born slaves, and reared to all the privations and calamities of hopeless servitude, is enough to strike a damp into the hearts of the fondest couple. Slaves yield to the impulses of nature, and propagate a race of slaves; but save in a few rare instances, servitude is as fatal to domestic love as to all the ​other virtues. Some few choice spirits indeed, will still rise superior to their condition, and when cut off from every other support, will find within their own hearts, the means of resisting the deadly and demoralizing influences of servitude. In the same manner, the baleful poison of the plague or yellow fever — innocent indeed and powerless in comparison! — while it rages through an infected city, and sweeps its thousands and tens of thousands to the grave, finds, here and there, an iron constitution, which defies its, total malignity, and sustains itself by the sole aid of nature's health-preserving power.
On the Friday before the Sunday which had been fixed upon for our marriage, colonel Moore returned to SpringMeadow. His arrival was unexpected; and by me, at least, very much unwished for. To the other servants who hastened to welcome him home, he spoke with his usual kindness and good nature; but though I had come forward with the rest, all the notice he took of me, was a single stare of dissatisfaction. He appeared to be surprised, and that too not agreeably, to see me again in the House.
The next day, I was discharged from my duties of house servant, and put again under the control of Mr Stubbs. This touched me to the quick; but it was nothing to what I felt the day following, when I went to the House to claim my bride. I was told that she was gone in the carriage with colonel Moore and his daughter, who had ridden out to call upon some of the neighbors; and that I need not take the trouble of coming again to see her, for Miss Caroline did not choose that her maid should marry a field hand.
It is impossible for me to describe the paroxysm of grief and passion, which I now experienced. Those of the same ardent temperament with myself will easily conceive my feelings; and to persons of a cooler temper, no description can convey an adequate idea. My promised wife snatched from me, and myself again exposed to the hateful tyranny of a brutal overseer! — and all so sudden too — and with such studied marks of insult and oppression!
I now felt afresh the ill effects of my foolish pride in keeping myself separate and aloof from my fellow servants. Instead of sympathizing with me, many of them openly rejoiced at ​my misfortune; and as I had never made a confidant or associate among them, I had no friend whose advice to ask, or whose sympathy to seek. At length, I bethought myself of the Methodist minister, who was to come that evening to marry us, and who had appeared to take a good deal of interest in the welfare of Cassy and myself. I was desirous not only of seeking such advice and consolation as he could afford me, but I wished to save the good man from a useless journey, and possibly from insult at Spring-Meadow; for colonel Moore looked on all sorts of preachers, and the Methodists especially, with an eye of very little favor.
I knew that the clergyman in question, held a meeting, about five miles off; and I resolved, if I could get leave, to go and hear him. I applied to Mr Stubbs for a pass, that is, a written permission, without which no slave can go off the plantation to which he belongs, except at the risk of being stopped by the first man he meets, horsewhipped, and sent home again. But Mr Stubbs swore that he was tired of such gadding, and he told me that he had made up his mind to grant no more passes for the next fortnight.
To some sentimental persons, it may seem hard after the slave has labored six days for his master, and the blessed seventh at Jength gladdens him with its beams, that he cannot be allowed a little change of scene, but must still be confined to the hated fields, the daily witnesses of his toils and his sufferings. Yet many thrifty managers and good disciplinarians are, like Mr Stubbs, very much opposed to all gadding; and they pen up their slaves, when not at work, as they pen up their cattle, to keep them, as they say, out of mischief.
At another time, this new piece of petty tyranny, might have provoked me; but now, I scarcely regarded it, for my whole heart was absorbed by a greater passion. I was slowly returning towards the servants' quarter, when a little girl, one of the house servants, came running to me, almost out of breath. I knew her to be one of Cassy's favorites, and I caught her in my arms. As soon as she had recovered her breath, she said she had been looking for me all the morning, for she had a message from Cassy; that Cassy had been obliged, much against her inclination, to go out ​that morning with her mistress, but that I must not be alarmed or down-hearted, for she loved me as well as ever.
I kissed the little messenger, and thanked her a thousand times for her news. I then hastened to my house. It was quite a comfortable little cottage, which Mrs Moore had ordered to be built for Gassy and myself, but of which I expected every moment to be deprived. The news I had heard, excited new commotions in my bosom. I had no sooner sat down, than I found it impossible to keep quiet. My heart beat violently; the fever in my blood grew high. I left the house and walked about, within the limits of my jail yard, — for so I might justly esteem the plantation; I used the most violent exercise, and tried every means I could think of to subdue the powerful emotions of mixed hope and fear, with which I was agitated, and which I found more oppressive than even the certainty of misery.
As evening drew on, I watched for the return of the carriage; and at length, its distant rumbling caught my ear. I hastened towards the house, in the hope of seeing Gassy, and perhaps, of speaking with her. The carriage stopped at the door, and I was fast approaching it but at the instant, it occurred to me, that it would be better not to risk being seen by colonel Moore, who, I was now well satisfied, entertained a decided hostility towards me, and whom I believed to be the author of the cruel repulse I had that morning met with. This thought stopped me, and I drew back and returned home, without catching a glimpse, or exchanging a word.
I threw myself upon my bed; but I turned continually from side to side, and found it impossible to compose myself to rest. Hour after hour dragged on; but I could not sleep. It was past midnight, when I heard a slight tap at the door, and a soft whisper, which thrilled through every nerve. I sprung up; I opened the door; I clasped her to my bosom. It was Gassy; it was my betrothed wife.
She told me, that since colonel Moore's return, every thing seemed changed at the House. Miss Caroline had told her, that colonel Moore had a very bad opinion of me, and was very much displeased to find, that during his absence I had been again employed as one of the house ​servants. She added, that when he was told of our intended marriage, he had declared that Gassy was too pretty a girl to be thrown away upon such a scoundrel, and that he would undertake to provide her with a much better husband. So her mistress had bidden her to think no more of me; but at the same time, had told her not to cry, for she would never leave off teasing her father, till he had fulfilled his promise; "and if you get a husband," the young lady added, "that you know is all that any of us want." So thought the mistress; the maid, I have reason to suppose, was rather more refined in her notions of matrimony. I was not quite certain how to interpret this conduct of colonel Moore's.
I was strongly inclined to consider it, only as a new out-break of that spite and hostility, which I had been experiencing ever since my useless and foolish appeal to his fatherly feelings. It occurred to me however as possible, that his opposition to our marriage might spring from other motives. Whatever I might imagine, I kept my own counsel. One motive which occurred to me, I could not think of myself, with the slightest patience; and still less could I bear to shock and distress poor Gassy, by the mention of it. Another motive, which I thought might possibly have influenced colonel Moore, was less discreditable to him, and would have been flattering to the pride of both Gassy and myself. But this, I could not mention, without leading to disclosures, which I did not see fit to make.
Cassy knew herself to be colonel Moore's daughter; but early in our acquaintance, I had discovered that she had no idea, that I was his son. I have every reason to believe, that Mrs Moore was perfectly well informed as to both these particulars; for they were of that sort, which seldom or never escape the eagerness of female curiosity, and more especially, the curiosity of a wife.
Whatever she might know, she discovered in it no impediment to my marriage with Gassy. Nor did I; for how could that same regard for the decencies of life — such is the soft phrase which justifies the most unnatural cruelty — that refused to acknowledge our paternity, or to recognize any relationship between us, pretend at the same time, and on the sole ground of relationship, to forbid our union? ​But I knew that Cassy felt, rather than reasoned; and though born and bred a slave, she possessed great delicacy of feeling. Besides, she was a Methodist, and though as cheerful and gay hearted a girl as I ever knew, she was very devout in all the observances of her religion. I feared to put our mutual happiness in jeopardy; I was unwilling to harass Cassy, with what I esteemed unnecessary scruples. I had never told her the story of my parentage, and every day I grew less inclined to tell it. Accordingly I made no other answer to what she told me, except to say, that however little colonel Moore might like me, his dislike was not my fault.
A momentary pause followed; — I pressed Cassy's hand in os and in a faltering voice, I asked, what she intended to do.
"I am your wife; — I will never be any body's but hee was the answer. I clasped the dear girl to my heart. We knelt together, and with upraised hands invoked the Deity to witness and confirm our union. It was the only sanction in our power; and if twenty priests had said a benediction over us, would that have made our vows more binding, or our marriage-more complete?