Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent

Author:Linda Brent
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Slaves -- United States -- Biography, Slaves -- United States -- Social conditions, 1813-1897, Women slaves -- United States -- Biography, Jacobs, Harriet A. (Harriet Ann)
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2021-03-26T17:05:23+00:00

XIX

The Children Sold

The Doc­tor came back from New York, of course with­out ac­com­plish­ing his pur­pose. He had ex­pend­ed con­sid­er­able mon­ey, and was rather dis­heart­ened. My broth­er and the chil­dren had now been in jail two months, and that al­so was some ex­pense. My friends thought it was a fa­vor­able time to work on his dis­cour­aged feel­ings. Mr. Sands sent a spec­u­la­tor to of­fer him nine hun­dred dol­lars for my broth­er William, and eight hun­dred for the two chil­dren. These were high prices, as slaves were then sell­ing; but the of­fer was re­ject­ed. If it had been mere­ly a ques­tion of mon­ey, the doc­tor would have sold any boy of Ben­ny’s age for two hun­dred dol­lars; but he could not bear to give up the pow­er of re­venge. But he was hard pressed for mon­ey, and he re­volved the mat­ter in his mind. He knew that if he could keep Ellen till she was fif­teen, he could sell her for a high price; but I pre­sume he re­flect­ed that she might die, or might be stolen away. At all events, he came to the con­clu­sion that he had bet­ter ac­cept the slave-trad­er’s of­fer. Meet­ing him in the street, he in­quired when he would leave town. “To­day, at ten o’clock,” he replied. “Ah, do you go so soon?” said the doc­tor. “I have been re­flect­ing up­on your propo­si­tion, and I have con­clud­ed to let you have the three ne­groes if you will say nine­teen hun­dred dol­lars.” Af­ter some par­ley, the trad­er agreed to his terms. He want­ed the bill of sale drawn up and signed im­me­di­ate­ly, as he had a great deal to at­tend to dur­ing the short time he re­mained in town. The doc­tor went to the jail and told William he would take him back in­to his ser­vice if he would prom­ise to be­have him­self; but he replied that he would rather be sold. “And you shall be sold, you un­grate­ful ras­cal!” ex­claimed the doc­tor. In less than an hour the mon­ey was paid, the pa­pers were signed, sealed, and de­liv­ered, and my broth­er and chil­dren were in the hands of the trad­er.

It was a hur­ried trans­ac­tion; and af­ter it was over, the doc­tor’s char­ac­ter­is­tic cau­tion re­turned. He went back to the spec­u­la­tor, and said, “Sir, I have come to lay you un­der obli­ga­tions of a thou­sand dol­lars not to sell any of those ne­groes in this state.” “You come too late,” replied the trad­er; “our bar­gain is closed.” He had, in fact, al­ready sold them to Mr. Sands, but he did not men­tion it. The doc­tor re­quired him to put irons on “that ras­cal, Bill,” and to pass through the back streets when he took his gang out of town. The trad­er was pri­vate­ly in­struct­ed to con­cede to his wish­es. My good old aunt went to the jail to bid the chil­dren good­bye, sup­pos­ing them to be the spec­u­la­tor’s prop­er­ty, and that she should nev­er see them again. As she held Ben­ny in her lap, he said, “Aunt Nan­cy, I want to show you some­thing.

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