Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

Slave Life in Georgia 38
24.03.2006
me, he would not ask the men to hold me, for fear I should kill them, but used to
creep up very slily,and hit me unawares, or throw sticks, chunks, and big stones
at me, which sometimes hit and hurt me, and sometimes missed me and injured
another. All this I bore. I wanted to get a clear start, for my mind was bent upon
making tracks for England, which I fancied was not very far away. So I put up
with the floggings and the ill-usage, and bided my time.
I remember once he wanted to punish me for a spite he had. He and I had been
watching each other a good many days, and I had contrived to dodge him out of
his revenge.
At length he invited one Jessie Cleveland, who lived in De Calb county, and
five or six more of his companions, to go a fishing with him. He took me and
the other negroes to draw the seine
Page 72
through the river. We were to fish at night, so we lighted a great fire on the
bank, and whilst they sat down by it, drinking, and smoking, and feasting, we
went on fishing by torch-light. We remained at it the whole night, and Stevens
kept on forcing us to drink rum until we were all drunk, like himself and his
companions. At eight o'clock in the morning we left off, and then, seeing I could
not help myself by running away, he set to and flogged me with a hickory rod:
and how he did beat me that morning--oh dear!
At length I determined to be off. John Glasgow had been given away about two
years before, to Stevens' son John. When he went I lost my only friend. But all
he had told me rested on my mind. My whole thoughts dwelt upon England, and
as things seemed to be getting worse with me, I considered the time was come
for me to make a bold start for liberty.
Accordingly I laid in, by degrees, a stock of corn-bread, and having obtained a
forged pass from a poor white man, for which I gave him an old hen, I stole off
one night, about two months after I had procured the pass, and made for the
high road, which I thought would lead me straight to England. I walked on all
night, and
Page 73
when morning came hid myself in the wood, starting again when it began to get
dusk. I went on this way a great many nights, keeping to the main road, and