Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

Slave Life in Georgia 20
trade to navigation, there seemed to be a prospect of his amassing wealth in the
course of a few years. Indeed, had he only known how to read and write, he
might have been mate long ago.
In the year 1830, John Glasgow, being then about twenty-five years of age,
engaged to go out to Savannah, in Georgia, in an English vessel, and under an
English captain, for a cargo of rice. He was now the father of two children, and
his heart yearned more strongly towards them and his wife than it had ever done
before. He seemed to be impressed with a foreboding of evil, and half repented
having put his mark to the ship's articles. But his wife encouraged him,
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reminding him of his promise to her that this should be his last voyage to so
distant a country, and that on his return he was to confine his trips to the English
coast, and never go far from home again. So John kissed his wife and children,
and the vessel left the Mersey with a favourable breeze, bearing him away with
a sadder heart than he had ever had under similar circumstances. The voyage
was prosperous, and the passage a rapid one: too much so for John Glasgow's
happiness, as it turned out.
The black law of Georgia, like that of South Carolina, is no respecter of
freedom, if it present itself with a coloured skin; and poor John, a freeman born,
a British subject, and unoffending, was seized, handcuffed like a common felon,
conveyed to gaol, and incarcerated until the vessel that brought him to the port
should discharge her cargo, be re-laden, and on the point of sailing away again.
What his feelings under such a trial were, may be left to the reader to imagine.
He had learnt, only too late, that his fate was in the hands of the captain: though,
as he had faithfully served him, he doubted not but he would pay the gaol fees
and save him from slavery. Unhappily the ship was detained considerably
beyond the
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time the captain had reckoned upon, owing to delays in the procuring of the
cargo. Slave-labour was dear, and the captain had to pay high wages to the slave
who had been hired to him to do John Glasgow's work, while John lay pining in
gaol, desiring nothing so much as that he might be doing it himself. The captain
was displeased at being thus imposed upon, especially when he thought of the
wages he would have to pay to John Glasgow; and matters in his mind were not
24.03.2006