Slave Narratives of the Underground Railroad by Christine Rudisel

Author:Christine Rudisel [Blaisdell, Christine Rudisel; Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486796703
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2014-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

JOSIAH HENSON

The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself (1849)

(excerpts)

One of the more famous of pre-Civil War escaped-slave narratives was Henson’s; he tells here of his decision to escape from the slaveholders who, in spite of his having paid a large sum for his freedom and having given life-saving service to them, were trying to sell him away. He rallied his wife to join him and their children in their quest to reach Canada. On their way, they were aided by, among others, American Indians. Safely in Canada, Henson reminds us, “I was a stranger, in a strange land, and had to look about me at once, for refuge and resource.” After years of farming, he resumed his calling of Sunday preaching.

WE ARRIVED HOME about the tenth of July, but it was not till the middle of August that Amos was well enough to move out of his chamber, though he had been convalescent all the while. As soon as he could speak, he told all I had done for him, and said, “If I had sold him, I should have died;” but it never seemed to occur to him or the rest of the family that they were under any, the slightest, obligation to me on that account. I had done well as a slave, and to have it acknowledged, and to be praised for it, was compensation enough for me. My merits, whatever they were, instead of exciting sympathy, or any feeling of attachment to me, seemed only to enhance my money value to them. This was not the view which I took of the case myself; and as soon as Amos began to recover, I began to meditate upon a plan of escape from the danger, in which I constantly stood, of a repetition of the attempt to sell me in the highest market. Providence seemed to have interfered once to defeat the scheme, but I could not expect such extraordinary circumstances to be repeated, and I was bound to do every thing in my power to secure myself and my family from the wicked conspiracy of Isaac and Amos R. against my life, as well as against my natural rights in my own person, and those which I had acquired, under even the barbarous laws of slavery, by the money I had paid for myself. If Isaac would only have been honest enough to adhere to his own bargain, I would have adhered to mine, and paid him all I had promised. But his attempt to kidnap me again, after having pocketed three-fourths of my market value, absolved me from all obligation, in my opinion, to pay him any more, or to continue in a position which exposed me to his machinations. I determined to make my escape to Canada, about which I had heard something, as beyond the limits of the United States; for, notwithstanding there were free States in the Union, I felt that I should be safer under an entirely foreign jurisdiction.

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