Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

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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
Slave Life in Georgia 39 24.03.2006 concealing myself by day in the woods or swamps. My only direction was to take the biggest road. One night I came to one, which, after I had followed it for some time--still under the impression that it would take me to England--brought me to a dead stop, at a stone quarry, at the foot of the Blue Ridge of mountains. I staid here all night, walking about to keep clear of the wild cats, panthers, and cat-amounts which I could hear prowling about, and whose growling alarmed me very much. When morning broke I began to consider what I should do. I knew that I ought to go northwards, but having nothing to guide me, I began to look about for signs. I soon noticed that on one side of the trees the moss was drier and shorter than it was on the other, and I concluded it was the sun which had burnt it up, and checked its growth, and that the dry moss must therefore be on the south side. I examined a good many trees, and finding these signs on most of them, I set off in the direction towards which the long, green moss pointed, and went on, until late in the day, without any thing Page 74 happening to me, when all of a sudden I heard a man chopping wood. I soon came up to him. He was a white man, and he asked me where I was going. "Into Ohio," said I. "Are you free?" he asked. "Yes, Sir," I answered. "Where's your pass, Sir?" he said. I took out the pass I had spoken of, and handed it to him. He saw at once that it was forged, and told me so. I drew out of him that a genuine pass was always signed by a great many individuals, and countersigned by the clerk of the district court, besides bearing the seal. He added, in answer to questions from me, that I was in Tennessee, and that no pass signed by one person would be of any use to enable me to go out of one State into another. I felt that I was caught, and hardly knew what to do. The man spoke very loud and strong at first, but I suppose there was something in my manner that made him feel timid, for he presently began to talk more softly, trying to calm me down. At last he said, if I would go home with him, he would see no harm came to me, and he would provide me with proper passes to take me through Tennessee, Kentucky, Page 75
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Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

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