. Personally, my concern was, mainly,
about my possible removal from the home of Master Hugh, which, after
that of my grandmother, was the most endeared to me. But, the whole
thing, as a feature of slavery, shocked me. It furnished me anew insight
into the unnatural power to which I was subjected. My detestation of
slavery, already great, rose with this new conception of its enormity.

That was a sad day for me, a sad day for little Tommy, and a sad day
for my dear Baltimore mistress and teacher, when I left for the Eastern
Shore, to be valued and divided. We, all three, wept bitterly that day;
for we might be parting, and we feared we were parting, forever. No one
could tell among which pile of chattels I should be flung. Thus early, I
got a foretaste of that painful uncertainty which slavery brings to the
ordinary lot of mortals. Sickness, adversity and death may interfere
with the plans and purposes of all; but the slave has the added danger
of changing homes, changing hands, and of having separations unknown
to other men. Then, too, there was the intensified degradation of the
spectacle. What an assemblage! Men and women, young and old, married
and single; moral and intellectual beings, in open contempt of their
humanity, level at a blow with{137} horses, sheep, horned cattle and
swine! Horses and men--cattle and women--pigs and children--all holding
the same rank in the scale of social existence; and all subjected to the
same narrow inspection, to ascertain their value in gold and silver--the
only standard of worth applied by slaveholders to slaves! How vividly,
at that moment, did the brutalizing power of slavery flash before me!
Personality swallowed up in the sordid idea of property! Manhood lost in
chattelhood!

After the valuation, then came the division. This was an hour of high
excitement and distressing anxiety. Our destiny was now to be _fixed for
life_, and we had no more voice in the decision of the question, than
the oxen and cows that stood chewing at the haymow. One word from the
appraisers, against all preferences or prayers, was enough to sunder all
the ties of friendship and affection, and even to separate husbands and
wives, parents and children. We were all appalled before that power,
which, to human seeming, could bless or blast us in a moment. Added to
the dread of separation, most painful to the majority of the slaves,
we all had a decided horror of the thought of falling into the hands of
Ma