IV. My New Master's Plantation -- My Medical Practice Among Slaves -- My Sister's Hiding Place

DURING the three months that I was on the plantation, my master changed overseers. The last one was a member of a Christian church. He was particularly fond of two things, namely, singing hymns and flogging slaves; but he had been told to spare me from the lash. I could see that it went very much against his wishes to do so. Soon after this overseer came on the plantation, my master took me into town to live with him. He had one brother and a sister, who were both subject to fits, returning about every four weeks. When his brother Dr. M. E. S---- was sick with them, I stopped by him for a few days, until the illness was over. His sister died soon after I went to live with him. My work had never been very hard, neither had I known, as many do, the want of food; and as for the lash, from a boy I had declared that I would never carry its stripes upon my back. It is true my condition was much bettered with my new master; but I was happier only as I could see my chance for escape clearer. At length I grew sick of myself in acting the deceitful part of a slave, and pretending love and friendship where I had none. Unpleasant as it was thus to act, yet, under the circumstances in which I was placed, I feel that I have done no wrong in so doing; I did everything that I could to please my master, who treated me with as much kindness as I could expect from any one to whom I was a slave.

Having been so long with Dr. N----, my master thought me quite capable of visiting the sick slaves on the plantation. This part of my work caused the overseer much unpleasantness; he would sometimes want to give them oil, or something of the kind, saying they were not sick; at other times he would say they were well enough to go to work, and if they were too sick to work, they were too sick to eat. Knowing that he would not strike me for having my own way in what I was sent there for--to see if they were sick and give them what they needed--I took great pleasure in differing with him on all occasions when I thought my patient dangerously ill. My judgment in regard to such diseases as are most common on a plantation was considered very good for one of my age; so much so, that a young planter who was studying medicine at the time, offered my master one thousand five hundred dollars for me. The way I came to know this was thus: he asked me one day if I wanted to be sold. This woke up a little of the old feeling, and I had almost forgotten myself for a minute. "No, sir," I said, "I am not anxious to be sold, but I know I have got to serve some one." Here he made me a promise which I shall never forget, though it was not consoling to me. He said, "You shall not serve any one after me: I have been offered a very handsome price for you; but I don't want to sell you." True, I was glad to hear him say that I should serve no one after him; this required a little consideration; he was but a few years older than me, and to wait for him to die looked to me too much like giving a man who was in want of his daily bread a cheque on the bank to be paid when he is dead. To have prayed for his death would have been wrong; to have killed him would have been worse; so, finally, I concluded to let him live as long as the Lord was willing he should, and I would get off as soon as possible. My pride would not allow me to let a man feed and clothe me for nothing; I would work the ends of my fingers off first.

I have said nothing about Mr. S----'s plantation slaves; I have only spoken of his treatment to me. I am willing to acknowledge kindness, even in a slaveholder, wherever I have seen it; but had he treated all of his slaves as he treated me, the probability is that they would have been of as little value to him as I was. Some may try to make out of this a case of ingratitude; but I do not feel myself under the slightest obligation to any one who holds me against my will, though he starved himself to feast me. Doubtless he meant to do me a good turn; but he put it off too far. I appreciated his kindness, and endeavoured to be as useful as I could.

At this time my condition was so much better than my sister's, that I had almost ceased to speak of leaving in the presence of my grandmother; for there is an inexpressible feeling in the breast of a woman who has lost child after child, whether it has been taken by force or by the hand of death, that makes her cling with tighter grasp to the last one. No doubt many of my readers can picture to themselves the force of the prayers and tears of a pious mother under such trials. My uncle Joseph was gone, she knew not where, and my sister was so closely pursued that they were obliged to hide her in the house between the roof and the ceiling. They are now beyond the reach of the slave power, or I would not dare to tell how this was done.

My grandmother's house had seven rooms--two upper rooms, and five on the lower floor: on the west side there was a piazza. On the east side there were two rooms, with a lobby leading to the centre of the house. The room on the left on entering the lobby was used as a store-room; the ceiling of this room was of boards, the roof was shingled; the space between the roof and ceiling was from three and a half to four feet in height, running off to a point. My uncle made a cupboard in one corner of this room, with the top attached to the ceiling. The part of the board that covered the top of the cupboard was cut and made into a trap-door; the whole of it was so small and neatly done that no one would have believed it to be what it was--the entrance to her hiding-place. Everything that she received was put in that little cupboard. One of the upper rooms was lathed and plastered; a hole was broken in the wall, through which she could speak to my uncle or grandmother; and, to prevent her losing the use of her limbs, the windows were sometimes closed that she might come down and walk about the room. When she was sick, I visited her, and gave her such medicines as she needed. After my uncle-in-law left, Uncle Mark knew of no one in whom to confide; he was suspected by the doctor, and narrowly watched wherever he went; and although he could hear nothing of her, he somehow seemed to think that she had not made her escape. During the short time that my sister was on the plantation, she saw one of the women so cruelly whipped that she died in a few days: it was done by James N----, the doctor's son. These are called isolated cases; but we shall never know the wrongs that have been perpetrated in the slave states of America, until the oppressor and the oppressed shall stand before the Judge of all the world. The doctor's wife was as anxious as himself to get my sister again, and made promises of handsome presents to the slaves if they would try to find out where she was, but to no effect. She remained in that strange place of concealment six years and eleven months before she could get away!