The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1883-01-24
The Fate of Virginia Negro.

afternoon of this writ NC. Seventy-fye
years-crowded, L knew. with many a
varied experience of success, of disap-
pointment, of toll and ailure-hai
bowed the Anak form the old Vir-
ginian and crowned his temples and Jaws
with great growth of hair as spotless
as the snow which bonnets in winter
the peaks his native Blue Ridge.
Sixty-rive ears dead gone was the
time. yet the old MN remembered
eve y detaito the trage ly as ii it had
happened but yesterday. Sixty-hve
years ago, or thereabouts, and the scene
one OF the fat farms along the James
River bottom, that had ormed cat ma
villas and aristocratic h lmes all the
way from the Capes to the Rockbridge
SUBMITS.
The legend is one of the last tragedies
of slavery. The villain and victim was,
as in the immortal truth-fiction of Mrs.
Stowe. man of Northern birth and
education. ' hat made more shame nj
the rigor which brought on him his
dreadful doom, was the IA 1t that he had
enjoyed and improved all the oppor-
tunities of liberal scholarship; WAS
really n man OF ability and practiced
one of the humane and liberal profess
sions.
Such the white actor. whose name
needs not to be given. 1t has been in
herited and is still worn by some
of the proudeSt FAM les of the
proudest Commonwe lth of the Union.
II belongs to class which. either by
blood or MARI age, embraces one name
at least which is familiar to ali the
world; which includes Judges Gen
erals, Bishops, and overnors among
its ramificatlons. and which has long
since and in many ways glor ously re-
deemed the one black spot on tie
escntcheon of which this is the record.
No dou t t s the first pHb shed record.
for then were there ew newspapers in
the State. and respect or powerful and
in .uential family would have made
silence seem twice golden.
The other party was b lrly negro
name supp essed on account of its not
be .ng known. Frankly" says Car
lyle of the Naples laz aroni. t'they
have no names" So of the Cud or
Sambo. or Cesar, or whatever other
brand he bore, whose feat and whose
fate am tel ing. He was known for a
good-natured, inoffensive giant, who
was capable of almost any exploits of
physical strength or physical endurance.
He did his task so readily and apparent
ly so easily that his master thought he
did not work hard enough. So he laid
a trap for him worthy of the genius Of
the inqu sition; not the first tr,p on
record tina caught both the hunter and
the hunted.
This was the snare: The doctor made
Sambo a liberal proposition. "Maul
so many rails next week." said
the docior to Sambo, land will pay
you for as many more as you split be-
yond your task. and you can do what
you please W tn the money"
Maybe it was wife and barns that
nerved the great sinews of Sambo;
maybe he had dim dreams in his sim
plicity of purchasing his freedom; may
be it was nothing more noble tina the
purpose of buying some extra drains for
his Christmas. At any rate Sambo
made famous week work nobody ever
did know how many hun ired rails he
mauled. The doctor measured of the
task with honest fidelity. and paid Sam
actitude. like the gentleman he wass
Sambo had more money than he had
ever before possessed in all his lie; per-
haps he had the only money he had
ever possessed in his life.
Then the doc or made to him the fol-
lowing Ii tie busine s ora ion:
Sambo you have pro ed that you
are abe to maui so-and-so many hum
dred rails a week That will be your
regular task hereafter, and l shall re-
quire it of you"
To which Sambo-the two men were
alone in the new grounds skirting a
patch of uncleared woods; the slave
standing maul.in hand over his work
The master mounted on horseback, sit
ng over M whip in hand; over both
of them Gods sky and od's eye-to
which Sambo, the ignorant black giant,
with some Gear idea of ri hit and
eason, after ALL ma le answer that he
could not do that that re had made a
eat effort for the sake of the pa that
had been promised him, and had lost
his time and his rest and broken himself
down entirely. In short and in fine. he
couldn't maui that mlny rails or a reg
ular weekly task, and he wouldn't un-
dertake it.
UitiHa ratio Tegun, means cannon.
Ultima rd 10 don,inOru means or used
to mean bull-whip or shot gun. am o
was too valuable 10 be food 20 pow Ter.
The doctor dismounted, ted his young
horse and made rea V to answer Sam
bo gument with the sy llogism of his
cowhide.
met n ne cases ont of hundred, the
logic would have proved unauswerable
and invulnerable. This was the hun
dredt time when it didn't ambo
happened to hold in his han sort of
ma ,Or premise in the ape of maui
" means of this he demonstrated the
cowhide syll gism to be ut sophistry
and fallacy. In short he struck the doc
tor on the lead, and ,ept on striking till
he killed him.
Then Sambo did notable thing.
He unhitched the wild, young colt,
which had been tied to sapl ng 10 await
the co hide d a eci $, mounteI him,
and took the bod of h dead master
before him-a S ght to see. Sambo
rode along with b saddle mate till he
came to a ked tree whose bran .hes
partel not far over the horses head.
Into This crotch Sambo lightly un the
corpse, struck the horse lick that sent
him .uncin homeward, and him eli
went back calmly to his lot and calling
o. mauling rails. .4-
.Toom cam the horse, but toom
never came he," sang Mo- .herwell OF
the cavalier. dea in battle. Same way
@ the doctor colt. He tore into the
stable q, ard not long after Sambo truck
| him search alter tine was made and
| The body of the doctor was found in the
| FORK the tree. Strange to say. there
was not for several days any suspicion
of violence. 1t was supposed that the
w Ii colt had away and thrown the
do tor into the tree. breaking his neck
and causin death. The BODY was s.
odged and borne to the great house;
the neighborhood was summoned to q
stately funeral; the parson gave vent
to the choicest eloquence that could be
ound in h bur al; the ususi tears were
she'd and tributes pa d, and the remains
were laid with great pomp in the
family funeral inc,o sure, nobody sus-
pecting the real facts OF the case. No