Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky by J. D. Green

Author:J. D. Green [Green, J. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9781409974758
Google: w7GbQwAACAAJ
Publisher: Dodo Press
Published: 2009-11-15T00:51:17+00:00

"Ah, whither shall I go,

Burthened, or sick, or faint;

To whom shall I my troubles show,

And pour out my complaint."

Not daring to sing it for fear of disturbing the sale, they both knelt down with the children, and Reuben offered up a long and fervent prayer. In the interval of his prayer nineteen of the slaves were sold, and he had not concluded when my number being twenty was called, and my master handed me out under the hammer; when, after a few preliminary remarks on the part of the auctioneer, my master mounted the auction block and recommended me as a good field hand, a good cook, waiter, hostler, a coachman, gentle and willing, and above all, free from the disease of running away. So after a short and spirited bidding I went at 1,025 dollars. Here the sale policeman, whose business it was to take charge of the negroes sold until bills were settled and papers made out, led me from the block outside the crowd, and placing me by a cart, put on a pair of iron handcuffs; but being well acquainted with me as a troublesome tricky negro, he put the handcuff on my right wrist—took the other cuff through the cart wheel and round the spoke, and then locked it on my left hand, so that if I did start to run, I should carry the cart and all with me. Number twenty-one was now called, and out came poor Reuben, and was placed under the hammer; his weight was said to be two hundred pounds, his age thirty two. Poor Sally, his wife, unable any longer to control her feelings, made her way out of the slave pen, with her babe in her arms, followed by her five small children, and she threw one of her arms around Reuben's neck; and now commenced a scene that beggars all description. Her countenance, though mild and beautiful, was by the keenest pain and sorrow distorted and disfigured: her voice soft and gentle, accompanied with heart rending gestures, appealed to the slave buyer in tones so very mournful, that I thought it might have even melted cruelty itself to some pity—coming as it did from a woman:—Oh! master, master! buy me and my children with my husband—do, pray; and this was the only crime the poor woman committed for which she suffered death on the spot. Her master stepped up from behind her, and with the butt end of his carriage whip loaded with lead, struck her a blow on the side of the head or temples, and she fell her full length to the ground. Poor Reuben stooped to raise her up, but was prevented by the jail policeman, who seized him by the neck and led him over close to where I stood: and whilst he was in the act of selecting a pair of handcuffs for Reuben, voice after voice was heard in the crowd—she is dead! she is dead! But what was the effect

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