# The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 14

Contents
When my new master learned that I had but just recovered from a fever, and that my strength was not yet entirely restored, he procured a horse for me, and we set out together for his plantation. He lived a considerable distance west of Richmond, in that part of the State, known as Middle Virginia. During the ride, he entered into conversation with me, and I found him a very different person from any one I had ever met with before.
He told me that I might consider myself lucky in falling into his hands; for he made it a point to treat his servants better than anybody in the neighborhood. "If they are discontented, or unruly, or apt to run away," he added, "I sell them at once, and so get rid of them. I don't want any such fellows about me. But as my servants know very well, that they stand no chance to better themselves by changing their master, they are very cautious how they ​offend me. Be obedient, my boy, and do your task, and 1 will ensure you plenty to eat, enough clothes, and more indulgence than you will be likely to get from any other master." Such was the amount of major Thornton's lecture, which, it took him however, some five or six hours to get through with.
It was late in the evening before we arrived at Oakland, — for that was the name of major Thornton's property. The house was of brick, with wooden porticos. It was not large, but neat and very handsome, and presented many more appearances of substantial comfort than are to be found about most of the houses of Virginia. 'The grounds around it, were prettily laid out, and ornamented with flowers and shrubbery, — a thing quite uncommon, and which I had seldom seen before. At a distance, on a fine swell, were the servants' cabins, built of brick, neat and substantial; not placed in a straight line, but clustered together in manner that had something picturesque about it. They were shaded by fine large oaks; no underbrush nor weeds were suffered to grow about them, and altogether, they presented an appearance of neatness end comfort, as new and singular as it was pleasing. The servants' cabins, on all the plantations I had ever seen before, were a set of miserable ruinous hovels, with leaky roofs and clay floors, almost buried in a rank growth of weeds, and as dirty and ill-kept as they were uncomfortable.
The children, who were playing about the cabins, furnished a new occasion of surprise. I had been accustomed to see the children of a plantation, running about stark naked, or dressed — if dressed at all — in a shirt of dirty osnaburgs, hanging in tatters about their legs, and never washed after it was once put on. But the children at Oakland were neatly and comfortably clothed, and presented nothing of that squalid, pinched, neglected and half-starved appearance, to which my eye was so well accustomed. Their merry faces, and boisterous sports, called up no idea of juvenile wretchedness. I observed too, that the hands, who were just coming in from their work, were all well clothed. I saw none of those patched, tattered, ragged and filthy garments so common on other plantations. ​Major Thornton was not a planter; — that is to say, he did not make tobacco, and he chose to call himself a farmer. His principal crop was wheat; and he was a great advocate for the clover system of cultivation, which he had adopted and pursued with much success. He owned some thirty or forty working hands; the children and superannuated, made his entire stock of slaves upwards of eighty. He kept no overseer, but managed for himself. Indeed it was a maxim with him, that an overseer was enough to ruin any man. He was naturally stirring and industrious, and agriculture was his hobby, a hobby which he rode to some purpose.
In all these things, and many others, he was the perfect contrast of all his neighbors; and for that reason, very little liked by any of them. He carefully avoided horse-racing, cock-fights, political meetings, drinking, gambling, and frolicking of every sort. His money, he used to say, cost him too much to make it, to be thrown away upon a bet; and as to frolics, he had neither time nor taste for any such nonsense. His neighbors revenged themselves for this contempt of their favorite sports, by pronouncing him a mean-spirited money-making fellow. They went further, and accused him of being a bad citizen and a dangerous neighbor. They complained most bitterly, that his excessive indulgence to his servants made all the slaves in the neighborhood, uneasy and discontented; and at one time, some of them went so far as to talk about giving him warning to move out of the county.
But major Thornton was a man of spirit. He understood his own rights; — he knew well the people among whom he lived, and what sort of reasoning would influence them most. He contrived to get hold of an offensive remark of one of the busiest of his ill-disposed neighbors, and sent him a challenge. It was accepted; and his antagonist was shot through the heart at the first fire. Henceforward, — though his neighbors liked him no better than before, — they took very good care how they talked about him, and allowed him to go on in his own way, without any interference.
Major Thornton had not been bred a planter, and this ​perhaps was the reason, why he departed so much from the ordinary routine, and managed things so very differently from all his neighbors. He was born of a good family, as they say in Virginia, but his father died when he was a mere boy, and left but a very scanty property. He began life, in a small way, in a country store. His shrewdness, economy, and attention to his business, enabled him, in the course of a few years, to lay up a considerable sum of money. In Virginia, trade is hardly looked upon as respectable, — at least, such was the case at the time of which I am speaking, — and every one who desires to be any body, aims at becoming a landed proprietor. About the time that major Thornton had made enough, to think of changing his store for a plantation, the proprietor of Oakland, having already wasted two good estates on dogs, horses, and wild debauchery, became so pressed for money, as to be obliged to bring his remaining property under the hammer. Major Thornton became the purchaser; — but the place he bought, was very different from Oakland as I saw it. The buildings which were old and ugly, were all out of repair and just tumbling to the ground; and the land was nearly ruined by that miserable, thriftless system of cultivation, so universal throughout the slave-holding states of America.
In a few years after the property had passed into the hands of major Thornton, every thing was changed. The old houses were torn down and new ones built. The grounds about the house were enclosed and ornamented; and the land, under skilful management, was fast regaining its original fertility. Those who had been born and bred planters, and whose estates were very much in the same way in which Oakland had been before it fell into the hands of major Thornton, looked at what was going on there, with astonishment and envy, and wondered how it could possibly happen. Major Thornton was always ready to tell them; for he was extremely fond of talking, — particularly about himself and his system of farming. But though he had explained the whole matter at least ten times, to every one of his neighbors, he never could make a single convert, He had three favorite topics; but he was equally unsuccessful upon all of them. He never could persuade any ​one of his neighbors that a clover lay was the true cure for sterile fields; that the only way to have a plantation well managed, was to manage it one's self; or that to give servants enough to eat, was a sure method to prevent them from plundering the corn-fields and stealing sheep.
But though major Thornton could gain no imitators, he still persevered in farming according to his own notions. In no respect was he more an innovator than in the management of his slaves. A merciful man, he used to say, Is merciful to his beast; and not having been raised on a plantation, he could not bear the idea of treating his servants worse than his horses. "It may do very well for you, colonel," he said one day, to one of his neighbors, "to tie a fellow up and give him forty lashes with your own hand; you were born and bred to it, and I dare say you find it very easy. But as odd as you may think it, I had much rather be flogged myself than to flog one of my servants; and though sometimes I am obliged to do it, it is a great point with me to get along with as little whipping as possible. That's a principal reason why I keep no overseer, — for a cow-hide and a pair of irons, are the only two things those fellows have any notion of. They have no wish, and if they had, they have not the sense, to get along in any other way; — the devil take the whole generation of them. Every body, you know, has their oddities. For my part, I hate to hear the crack of a whip on my plantation, even though it be nothing more than a cart-whip."
The above speech of major Thornton's, contained a brief summary of his system. He was, what every other slaveholder is, and from the very necessity of his condition must be, — a tyrant. He felt no scruple in compelling his fellow men to labor, in order that he might appropriate the fruits of that labor to his own benefit, — and in this certainly, if in any thing, the very essence of tyranny consists. But though a tyrant, as every slave-holder is and must be, he was a reasonable and, as far as possible, a humane one, — which very few slave-holders either are or can be. He had no more thought of relinquishing what he and the laws, called his property in his slaves, than he had of leaving his land to be occupied by the first comer. He would have ​been as ready as any of his neighbors, to have denounced the idea of emancipation, or the notion of limiting his power over his servants, as a ridiculous absurdity, and an impertinent interference with his ‘most sacred rights.' But though in theory, he claimed all the authority and prerogatives of the most unlimited despotism, he displayed in his practice, a certain share of common sense and common humanity, — two things, which so far as relates to the management of his slaves, it is extremely uncommon for a slave-holder to have, or if he has them, very difficult for him to exercise.
These unusual gifts led him to a discovery, which at the time was entirely new in his neighborhood; though I hope before now, it has become general. He discovered that men cannot work without eating; and that so far as the capability of labor is concerned, there is the same policy in attending to the food, shelter and comfort of one's slaves, as in spending something on corn and stabling for one's horses. ‘Feed well and work hard,' was major Thornton's motto and practice, — a motto, and a practice, which in any other country than America, would never have subjected him to the charge of unreasonable and superfluous humanity.
As to whipping, a Thornton, to use his own phrase, could not bear it. Whether he felt some qualms of conscience at the barefaced, open tyranny of the lash, — which [ do not think very probable, for I once heard him tell a Methodist parson, who ventured to say something to him on that delicate subject, that he had as much right to flog his slaves as to eat his dinner; or whether it was the influence of that instinctive humanity which is wanting only in brutal tempers, and which, till evil custom has worn it out, will not permit us to inflict pain, without feeling ourselves a sympathetic suffering; or whatever might be the reason; unless major Thornton was put into a passion — to which he was but seldom liable — he certainly had a great horror at using the whip.
But this was not all. Another man might have detested it as much as he did; but the practice of a year or two in planting, and the apparent impossibility of dispensing with its use, would have taught him to get rid of so inconvenient a squeamishness. There are very few men indeed — and ​of all men in the world, very few planters — whose good sense and knowledge of human nature, would enable them to manage their slaves by any other means. Major Thornton, however, contrived to get on wonderfully well; and in all the time that I lived with him, which was nearly two years, there were not more than a half a dozen whippings on the place. If one of his servants was guilty of any thing, which in a slave, is esteemed especially enormous; such as running away, repeated theft, idleness, insolence or insubordination, major Thornton sent him off to be sold, By a strange, but common inconsistency, this man of feeling, who could not bear to whip a slave, or to see him whipped, or even to have him whipped on his own plantation, felt no scruples at all, at tearing him from the arms of his wife and children, and setting him up at public sale, to fall into the hands of any ferocious master, who might chance to purchase him!
This dread of being sold, was ever before our eyes; and was as efficacious as the lash is, on other plantations, in forcing us to labor and submission. We knew very well, that there were few masters like major Thornton; and the thought of exchanging our nice, neat cottages, our plentiful allowance, our regular supply of clothing, and the general comfort and indulgence of Oakland, for the fare and the treatment to be expected from the common run of masters, was more terrible than a dozen whippings. Major Thornton understood this well; and he took care to keep up the terrors of it, by making an example of some delinquent, once in a year or two. Bus
Then he had the art of exciting our emulation by little prizes and presents; he was very scrupulous never to exact any thing beyond the appointed task; and he kept us in good humor, by allowing us, when not at work, to be very much our own masters, and to go where, and do what we pleased. We were rather cautious though, how we visited the neighboring plantations; for with a magnanimity worthy of slave-holders, some of major Thornton's neighbors were in the habit of gratifying their spite against him, by improving every opportunity that offered, to abuse his servants. And here I may as well relate an incident that happened ​to myself, which will serve, at once, as a curious illustration of Virginian manners, and a proof of what I believe, will be found to be true all the world over, — that where the law: aim at the oppression of one half the people of a country, they are seldom treated with much respect by the other half
Captain Robinson was one of major Thornton's nearest neighbors, and a person with whom he had frequent alter-
cations. I was passing along on the public road one Sunday, at a little distance from Oakland, when I met captain Robinson on horseback, followed by a servant. He bade me stop, and inquired if I was the fellow whom that "damned scoundrel Thornton" sent to his house yesterday with an insolent message about his lower-field fences. I answered, that I had been sent yesterday with a message about the fence, which I had delivered to his overseer.
"A mighty pretty message it was, mighty! I'll tell you what, boy, if my overseer had known his business, he would have tucked you up on the spot and given you forty lashes."
I told him that I had only delivered the message which my master had sent me with, and it seemed hard to blame me for that.
"Don't talk to me, don't talk to me, you infernal scoundrel — I'll teach both you and your master what it is to insult a gentleman. Lay hold of him Tom, while I dust that new jacket of his a little."
Having received these orders from his master, captain Robinson's man Tom, jumped off his horse and laid hold of me; but as I struggled hard and was the stronger of the two, I should soon have got away, if the master had not dismounted and come to the aid of his servant. Both together, they were too strong for me; and having succeeded in getting me down, they stripped off my coat, and bound my hands. Captain Robinson then mounted his horse, and beat me with his whip, till it was quite worn out. Having thus satisfied his rage, he rode off followed by Tom, without taking the trouble to loose my hands. They had no sooner left me, than I began to look about for my hat and coat. Both were missing; — and whether it was the captain or his servant that carried them off, I never could ​discover, I suppose though, it was the servant, — for I recollect very well seeing Tom, a few Sundays after, strutting about at a Methodist meeting, with a blue coat on, which I could almost have sworn to be mine.
When I got home, and told my master what had happened, he was in a towering passion. At first, he was for riding at once to captain Robinson's and calling for an explanation. But presently he recollected that the county court was to meet the next day, at which he had business. This would give him an opportunity to consult his lawyer; and after a little reflection, he thought it best not to move in the affair till he had legal advice upon it.
The next day he took me with him. We called upon the lawyer; I told what had happened to me, and major Thornton inquired what satisfaction the law would afford him.
The lawyer answered, that the law in this case was very clear, and the remedy it provided, all-sufficient. Some people," he said, "who know nothing about the matter, have asserted that the law in the slave-holding States, does not protect the person of the slave against the violence of the free, and that any white man may flog any slave, at his own good pleasure. This is a very great mistake, if not a wilful falsehood. The law permits no such thing. It extends the mantle of its protection impartially over bond and free. In this respect, the law knows no distinction. If a _ freeman is assaulted, he has his action for damages against the assailant; and if a slave is assaulted, the master of that slave, who is his legal guardian and protector, can bring his action for damages. Now in this case, major Thornton, it is quite plain that you have good ground of action against captain Robinson; and the jury, I dare say, will give you a swinging verdict. I suppose you are able to prove all these facts?"
"Prove them — to be sure," answered my master, "here is Archy himself who has told you the whole story."
"Yes, my good sir, but you do not seem to remember that a slave cannot be admitted to testify against a white man.,
"And pray tell me then," said major Thornton, "what ​good the law you speak of is going to dome? Did not Robinson catch Archy alone, and abuse him as he has told you? You don't suppose he was fool enough to call in a white man on purpose to be a witness against him. Why, sir, notwithstanding the protection of the law, which you commend so highly, every servant I have may be beaten by this Robinson every day in the week, and I not be able to get the slightest satisfaction. The devil take such law I say."
But my dear sir, answered the lawyer, "you must consider the great danger and inconvenience of allowing slaves to be witnesses."
"Why yes," said my master with a half smile, "I fancy it would be rather dangerous for some of my acquaintances; — quite inconvenient no doubt. Well sir, since you say the law can't help me in this matter, I must take care of myself. I cannot allow my servants to be abused in this way. I'll horsewhip that scoundrel Robinson at sight."
With these words, my master left the office, and I followed behind him. We had gone but a little way down the street, when he had an unexpected opportunity of carrying his threat into execution, — for as it chanced, we met captain Robinson, who had business, it seemed, at the county court, as well as major Thornton. My master did not waste many words upon him, but began striking him over the shoulders with his riding whip. Captain Robinson drew a pistol; — my master threw down his whip and drew a pistol also. The captain fired, but without effect; major Thornton then levelled his weapon, — but Robinson called out that he was unarmed and begged him not to fire. Major Thornton hesitated a moment, and then dropped his hand. By this time, quite a crowd had collected about us, and some friend of captain Robinson's handed him a loaded pistol. The combatants renewed their aim, and fired together. Captain Robinson fell desperately wounded. His ball missed my master, but passed through the body of a free colored man, who was the only person, of all the company, who made any attempt to separate the parties, ‘The poor fellow fell dead; and the people about declared that it was good enough for him, — for what right had "a cursed ​free fellow" like him to be interfering between gentlemen?
Captain Robinson's friends lifted him up and carried him home. Major Thornton and myself walked off the field in triumph, — and so the affair ended. Such affrays are much talked about; but the grand jury very seldom hears any thing of them; and the conqueror is pretty sure to rise in the public estimation.