The treatment of Slaves generally in Maryland 1

CHAPTER II.

The flight 14

CHAPTER III.

A dreary night in the woods--Critical situation the next day 31

CHAPTER IV.

The good woman of the toll-gate directs me to W.W.--My cordial reception
by him 40

CHAPTER V.

Seven months' residence in the family of J.K., a member of the Society
of Friends in Chester County, Pennsylvania--Removal to New York--Becomes
a convert to religion--Becomes a teacher 49

CHAPTER VI.

Some account of the family I left in slavery--Proposal to purchase
myself and parents--How met by my old master 58

CHAPTER VII.

The feeding, clothing, and religious instruction of the slaves in the
part of Maryland where I lived 65

APPENDIX 74

THE FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH.

CHAPTER I.

MY BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.--THE TREATMENT OF SLAVES GENERALLY IN MARYLAND.

I was born in the state of Maryland, which is one of the smallest and most
northern of the slave-holding states; the products of this state are
wheat, rye, Indian corn, tobacco, with some hemp, flax, &c. By looking at
the map, it will be seen that Maryland, like Virginia her neighbour, is
divided by the Chesapeake Bay into eastern and western shores. My
birthplace was on the eastern shore, where there are seven or eight small
counties; the farms are small, and tobacco is mostly raised.

At an early period in the history of Maryland, her lands began to be
exhausted by the bad cultivation peculiar to slave states; and hence she
soon commenced the business of breeding slaves for the more southern
states. This has given an enormity to slavery, in Maryland, differing from
that which attaches to the system in Louisiana, and equalled by none of
the kind, except Virginia and Kentucky, and not by either of these in
extent.

My parents did not both belong to the same owner: my father belonged to a
man named ----; my mother belonged to a man named ----. This not only made
me a slave, but made me the slave of him to whom my mother belonged; as
the primary law of slavery is, that the child shall follow the condition
of the mother.

When I was about four years of age, my mother, an older brother and
myself, were given to a son of my master, who had studied for the medical
profession, but who had now married wealthy, and was about to settle as a
wheat planter in Washington County, on the western shore. This began the
first of our family troubles th