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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Up From Slavery: An Autobiography, by
Booker T. Washington
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography
Author: Booker T. Washington
Posting Date: October 20, 2008 [EBook #2376]
Release Date: October, 2000
[Last updated: July 4, 2012]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
Produced by Internet Wiretap, An Anonymous Project Gutenberg
Volunteer, and Dan Muller
UP FROM SLAVERY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
By Booker T. Washington
This volume is dedicated to my Wife
Margaret James Washington
And to my Brother John H. Washington
Whose patience, fidelity,
and hard work have gone far to make the
work at Tuskegee successful.
Preface
This volume is the outgrowth of a series of articles, dealing with
incidents in my life, which were published consecutively in the Outlook.
While they were appearing in that magazine I was constantly surprised at
the number of requests which came to me from all parts of the country,
asking that the articles be permanently preserved in book form. I am
most grateful to the Outlook for permission to gratify these requests.
I have tried to tell a simple, straightforward story, with no attempt
at embellishment. My regret is that what I have attempted to do has
been done so imperfectly. The greater part of my time and strength is
required for the executive work connected with the Tuskegee Normal
and Industrial Institute, and in securing the money necessary for the
support of the institution. Much of what I have said has been written
on board trains, or at hotels or railroad stations while I have been
waiting for trains, or during the moments that I could spare from my
work while at Tuskegee. Without the painstaking and generous assistance
of Mr. Max Bennett Thrasher I could not have succeeded in any
satisfactory degree.
Introduction
The details of Mr. Washington's early life, as frankly set down in "Up
from Slavery," do not give quite a whole view of his education. He had
the training that a coloured youth receives at Hampton, which, indeed,
the autobiography does explain. But the reader does not get his
intellectual pedigree, for Mr. Washington himself, perhaps, does not
as clearly understand it as another man might. The truth is he had a
training during the most impressionable period of his life that was very
extraordinary, such a training as few men of his generation have had.
To see its full meaning one must start in the Hawaiian Islands half
a century or more ago.* There Samuel Armstrong, a youth of missionary
parents, earned enough money to pay his expenses at an American college.
Equipped with this small sum and the earnestness that the undertaking
implied, he came to Williams College when Dr. Mark Hopkins was
president. Williams College had many good things for youth in that day,
as it has in this, but the greatest was the strong personality of its
famous president. Every student does not profit by a great teacher; but
perhaps no young man ever came under the influence of Dr. Hopkins,
whose whole nature was so ripe for profit by such an experience as young
Armstrong. He lived in the family of President Hopkins, and thus had a
training that was wholly out of the common; and this training had
much to do with the development of his own strong character, whose
originality and force we are only beginning to appreciate.
* For this interesting view of Mr. Washington's education, I
am indebted to Robert C. Ogden, Esq., Chairman of the Board
of Trustees of Hampton Institute and the intimate friend of
General Armstrong during the whole period of his educational
work.
In turn, Samuel Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, took up his
work as a trainer of youth. He had very raw material, and doubtless most
of his pupils failed to get the greatest lessons from him; but, as
he had been a peculiarly receptive pupil of Dr. Hopkins, so Booker
Washington became a peculiarly receptive pupil of his. To the formation
of Mr. Washington's character, then, went the missionary zeal of New
England, influenced by one of the strongest personalities in modern
education, and the wide-reaching moral earnestness of General Armstrong
himself. These influences are easily recognizable in Mr. Washington
to-day by men who knew Dr. Hopkins and General Armstrong.
I got the cue to Mr. Washington's character from a very simple incident
many years ago. I had never seen him, and I knew little about him,
except that he was the head of a school at Tuskegee, Alabama. I had
occasion to write to him, and I addressed him as "The Rev. Booker T.
Washington." In his reply there was no mention of my addressing him as a
clergyman. But when I had occasion to write to him again, and persisted
in making him a preacher, his second letter brought a postscript: "I
have no claim to 'Rev.'" I knew most of the coloured men who at that
time had become prominent as leaders of their race, but I had not then
known one who was neither a politician nor a preacher; and I had
not heard of the head of an important coloured school who was not
a preacher. "A new kind of man in the coloured world," I said to
myself--"a new kind of man surely if he looks upon his task as an
economic one instead of a theological one." I wrote him an apology for
mistaking him for a preacher.
The first time that I went to Tuskegee I was asked to make an address
to the school on Sunday evening. I sat upon the platform of the large
chapel and looked forth on a thousand coloured faces, and the choir of
a hundred or more behind me sang a familiar religious melody, and the
whole company joined in the chorus with unction. I was the only white
man under the roof, and the scene and the songs made an impression on me
that I shall never forget. Mr. Washington arose and asked them to sing
one after another of the old melodies that I had heard all my life;
but I had never before heard them sung by a thousand voices nor by the
voices of educated Negroes. I had associated them with the Negro of the
past, not with the Negro who was struggling upward. They brought to my
mind the plantation, the cabin, the slave, not the freedman in quest of
education. But on the plantation and in the cabin they had never been
sung as these thousand students sang them. I saw again all the old
plantations that I had ever seen; the whole history of the Negro
ran through my mind; and the inexpressible pathos of his life found
expression in these songs as I had never before felt it.
And the future? These were the ambitious youths of the race, at work
with an earnestness that put to shame the conventional student life of
most educational institutions. Another song rolled up along the
rafters. And as soon as silence came, I found myself in front of this
extraordinary mass of faces, thinking not of them, but of that long and
unhappy chapter in our country's history which followed the one great
structural mistake of the Fathers of the Republic; thinking of the one
continuous great problem that generations of statesmen had wrangled
over, and a million men fought about, and that had so dwarfed the mass
of English men in the Southern States as to hold them back a hundred
years behind their fellows in every other part of the world--in England,
in Australia, and in the Northern and Western States; I was thinking of
this dark shadow that had oppressed every large-minded statesman from
Jefferson to Lincoln. These thousand young men and women about me were
victims of it. I, too, was an innocent victim of it. The whole Republic
was a victim of that fundamental error of importing Africa into America.
I held firmly to the first article of my faith that the Republic
must stand fast by the principle of a fair ballot; but I recalled the
wretched mess that Reconstruction had made of it; I recalled the
low level of public life in all the "black" States. Every effort of
philanthropy seemed to have miscarried, every effort at correcting
abuses seemed of doubtful value, and the race friction seemed to become
severer. Here was the century-old problem in all its pathos seated
singing before me. Who were the more to be pitied--these innocent
victims of an ancient wrong, or I and men like me, who had inherited
the problem? I had long ago thrown aside illusions and theories, and was
willing to meet the facts face to face, and to do whatever in God's name
a man might do towards saving the next generation from such a burden.
But I felt the weight of twenty well-nigh hopeless years of thought and
reading and observation; for the old difficulties remained and new
ones had sprung up. Then I saw clearly that the way out of a century
of blunders had been made by this man who stood beside me and was
introducing me to this audience. Before me was the material he had used.
All about me was the indisputable evidence that he had found the
natural line of development. He had shown the way. Time and patience and
encouragement and work would do the rest.
It was then more clearly than ever before that I understood the
patriotic significance of Mr. Washington's work. It is this conception
of it and of him that I have ever since carried with me. It is on this
that his claim to our gratitude rests.
To teach the Negro to read, whether English, or Greek, or Hebrew,
butters no parsnips. To make the Negro work, that is what his master did
in one way and hunger has done in another; yet both these left Southern
life where they found it. But to teach the Negro to do skilful work,
as men of all the races that have risen have worked,--responsible work,
which IS education and character; and most of all when Negroes so teach
Negroes to do this that they will teach others with a missionary zeal
that puts all ordinary philanthropic efforts to shame,--this is to
change the whole economic basis of life and the whole character of a
people.
The plan itself is not a new one. It was worked out at Hampton
Institute, but it was done at Hampton by white men. The plan had, in
fact, been many times theoretically laid down by thoughtful students of
Southern life. Handicrafts were taught in the days of slavery on most
well-managed plantations. But Tuskegee is, nevertheless, a brand-new
chapter in the history of the Negro, and in the history of the knottiest
problem we have ever faced. It not only makes "a carpenter of a man; it
makes a man of a carpenter." In one sense, therefore, it is of greater
value than any other institution for the training of men and women that
we have, from Cambridge to Palo Alto. It is almost the only one of which
it may be said that it points the way to a new epoch in a large area of
our national life.
To work out the plan on paper, or at a distance--that is one thing. For
a white man to work it out--that too, is an easy thing. For a coloured
man to work it out in the South, where, in its constructive period,
he was necessarily misunderstood by his own people as well as by the
whites, and where he had to adjust it at every step to the strained race
relations--that is so very different and more difficult a thing that the
man who did it put the country under lasting obligations to him.
It was not and is not a mere educational task. Anybody could teach boys
trades and give them an elementary education. Such tasks have been done
since the beginning of civilization. But this task had to be done with
the rawest of raw material, done within the civilization of the dominant
race, and so done as not to run across race lines and social lines that
are the strongest forces in the community. It had to be done for the
benefit of the whole community. It had to be done, moreover, without
local help, in the face of the direst poverty, done by begging, and done
in spite of the ignorance of one race and the prejudice of the other.
No man living had a harder task, and a task that called for more wisdom
to do it right. The true measure of Mr. Washington's success is, then,
not his teaching the pupils of Tuskegee, nor even gaining the support of
philanthropic persons at a distance, but this--that every Southern white
man of character and of wisdom has been won to a cordial recognition
of the value of the work, even men who held and still hold to the
conviction that a mere book education for the Southern blacks under
present conditions is a positive evil. This is a demonstration of
the efficiency of the Hampton-Tuskegee idea that stands like the
demonstration of the value of democratic institutions themselves--a
demonstration made so clear in spite of the greatest odds that it is no
longer open to argument.
Consider the change that has come in twenty years in the discussion
of the Negro problem. Two or three decades ago social philosophers and
statisticians and well-meaning philanthropists were still talking and
writing about the deportation of the Negroes, or about their settlement
within some restricted area, or about their settling in all parts of the
Union, or about their decline through their neglect of their children,
or about their rapid multiplication till they should expel the whites
from the South--of every sort of nonsense under heaven. All this has
given place to the simple plan of an indefinite extension among the
neglected classes of both races of the Hampton-Tuskegee system of
training. The "problem" in one sense has disappeared. The future will
have for the South swift or slow development of its masses and of its
soil in proportion to the swift or slow development of this kind of
training. This change of view is a true measure of Mr. Washington's
work.
The literature of the Negro in America is colossal, from political
oratory through abolitionism to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Cotton is
King"--a vast mass of books which many men have read to the waste of
good years (and I among them); but the only books that I have read a
second time or ever care again to read in the whole list (most of them
by tiresome and unbalanced "reformers") are "Uncle Remus" and "Up from
Slavery"; for these are the great literature of the subject. One has all
the best of the past, the other foreshadows a better future; and the
men who wrote them are the only men who have written of the subject with
that perfect frankness and perfect knowledge and perfect poise whose
other name is genius.
Mr. Washington has won a world-wide fame at an early age. His story
of his own life already has the distinction of translation into more
languages, I think, than any other American book; and I suppose that
he has as large a personal acquaintance among men of influence as any
private citizen now living.
His own teaching at Tuskegee is unique. He lectures to his advanced
students on the art of right living, not out of text-books, but
straight out of life. Then he sends them into the country to visit Negro
families. Such a student will come back with a minute report of the way
in which the family that he has seen lives, what their earnings are,
what they do well and what they do ill; and he will explain how they
might live better. He constructs a definite plan for the betterment
of that particular family out of the resources that they have. Such a
student, if he be bright, will profit more by an experience like this
than he could profit by all the books on sociology and economics that
ever were written. I talked with a boy at Tuskegee who had made such a
study as this, and I could not keep from contrasting his knowledge and
enthusiasm with what I heard in a class room at a Negro university
in one of the Southern cities, which is conducted on the idea that a
college course will save the soul. Here the class was reciting a lesson
from an abstruse text-book on economics, reciting it by rote, with so
obvious a failure to assimilate it that the waste of labour was pitiful.
I asked Mr. Washington years ago what he regarded as the most important
result of his work, and he replied:
"I do not know which to put first, the effect of Tuskegee's work on the
Negro, or the effect on the attitude of the white man to the Negro."
The race divergence under the system of miseducation was fast getting
wider. Under the influence of the Hampton-Tuskegee idea the races
are coming into a closer sympathy and into an honourable and helpful
relation. As the Negro becomes economically independent, he becomes a
responsible part of the Southern life; and the whites so recognize
him. And this must be so from the nature of things. There is nothing
artificial about it. It is development in a perfectly natural way. And
the Southern whites not only so recognize it, but they are imitating it
in the teaching of the neglected masses of their own race. It has thus
come about that the school is taking a more direct and helpful hold on
life in the South than anywhere else in the country. Education is not
a thing apart from life--not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct
teaching how to live and how to work.
To say that Mr. Washington has won the gratitude of all thoughtful
Southern white men, is to say that he has worked with the highest
practical wisdom at a large constructive task; for no plan for the
up-building of the freedman could succeed that ran counter to Southern
opinion. To win the support of Southern opinion and to shape it was a
necessary part of the task; and in this he has so well succeeded that
the South has a sincere and high regard for him. He once said to me that
he recalled the day, and remembered it thankfully, when he grew large
enough to regard a Southern white man as he regarded a Northern one. It
is well for our common country that the day is come when he and his work
are regarded as highly in the South as in any other part of the Union. I
think that no man of our generation has a more noteworthy achievement to
his credit than this; and it is an achievement of moral earnestness of
the strong character of a man who has done a great national service.
Walter H. Page.
UP FROM SLAVERY
Chapter I. A Slave Among Slaves
I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. I am
not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at
any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at some time.
As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a cross-roads
post-office called Hale's Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859. I do not
know the month or the day. The earliest impressions I can now recall are
of the plantation and the slave quarters--the latter being the part of
the plantation where the slaves had their cabins.
My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate,
and discouraging surroundings. This was so, however, not because my
owners were especially cruel, for they were not, as compared with many
others. I was born in a typical log cabin, about fourteen by sixteen
feet square. In this cabin I lived with my mother and a brother and
sister till after the Civil War, when we were all declared free.
Of my ancestry I know almost nothing. In the slave quarters, and even
later, I heard whispered conversations among the coloured people of
the tortures which the slaves, including, no doubt, my ancestors on my
mother's side, suffered in the middle passage of the slave ship while
being conveyed from Africa to America. I have been unsuccessful in
securing any information that would throw any accurate light upon
the history of my family beyond my mother. She, I remember, had a
half-brother and a half-sister. In the days of slavery not very much
attention was given to family history and family records--that is,
black family records. My mother, I suppose, attracted the attention of a
purchaser who was afterward my owner and hers. Her addition to the slave
family attracted about as much attention as the purchase of a new horse
or cow. Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even
know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white
man who lived on one of the near-by plantations. Whoever he was, I never
heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way
for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply
another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily
had engrafted upon it at that time.
The cabin was not only our living-place, but was also used as the
kitchen for the plantation. My mother was the plantation cook. The cabin
was without glass windows; it had only openings in the side which let in
the light, and also the cold, chilly air of winter. There was a door to
the cabin--that is, something that was called a door--but the uncertain
hinges by which it was hung, and the large cracks in it, to say nothing
of the fact that it was too small, made the room a very uncomfortable
one. In addition to these openings there was, in the lower right-hand
corner of the room, the "cat-hole,"--a contrivance which almost every
mansion or cabin in Virginia possessed during the ante-bellum period.
The "cat-hole" was a square opening, about seven by eight inches,
provided for the purpose of letting the cat pass in and out of the house
at will during the night. In the case of our particular cabin I could
never understand the necessity for this convenience, since there were
at least a half-dozen other places in the cabin that would have
accommodated the cats. There was no wooden floor in our cabin, the naked
earth being used as a floor. In the centre of the earthen floor there
was a large, deep opening covered with boards, which was used as a place
in which to store sweet potatoes during the winter. An impression of
this potato-hole is very distinctly engraved upon my memory, because I
recall that during the process of putting the potatoes in or taking them
out I would often come into possession of one or two, which I roasted
and thoroughly enjoyed. There was no cooking-stove on our plantation,
and all the cooking for the whites and slaves my mother had to do over
an open fireplace, mostly in pots and "skillets." While the poorly built
cabin caused us to suffer with cold in the winter, the heat from the
open fireplace in summer was equally trying.
The early years of my life, which were spent in the little cabin, were
not very different from those of thousands of other slaves. My mother,
of course, had little time in which to give attention to the training of
her children during the day. She snatched a few moments for our care in
the early morning before her work began, and at night after the day's
work was done. One of my earliest recollections is that of my mother
cooking a chicken late at night, and awakening her children for the
purpose of feeding them. How or where she got it I do not know. I
presume, however, it was procured from our owner's farm. Some people may
call this theft. If such a thing were to happen now, I should condemn it
as theft myself. But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason
that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty
of thieving. She was simply a victim of the system of slavery. I cannot
remember having slept in a bed until after our family was declared
free by the Emancipation Proclamation. Three children--John, my older
brother, Amanda, my sister, and myself--had a pallet on the dirt floor,
or, to be more correct, we slept in and on a bundle of filthy rags laid
upon the dirt floor.
I was asked not long ago to tell something about the sports and pastimes
that I engaged in during my youth. Until that question was asked it
had never occurred to me that there was no period of my life that was
devoted to play. From the time that I can remember anything, almost
every day of my life had been occupied in some kind of labour; though
I think I would now be a more useful man if I had had time for sports.
During the period that I spent in slavery I was not large enough to be
of much service, still I was occupied most of the time in cleaning the
yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill to
which I used to take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was
about three miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. The
heavy bag of corn would be thrown across the back of the horse, and the
corn divided about evenly on each side; but in some way, almost
without exception, on these trips, the corn would so shift as to become
unbalanced and would fall off the horse, and often I would fall with it.
As I was not strong enough to reload the corn upon the horse, I would
have to wait, sometimes for many hours, till a chance passer-by came
along who would help me out of my trouble. The hours while waiting for
some one were usually spent in crying. The time consumed in this way
made me late in reaching the mill, and by the time I got my corn ground
and reached home it would be far into the night. The road was a lonely
one, and often led through dense forests. I was always frightened. The
woods were said to be full of soldiers who had deserted from the army,
and I had been told that the first thing a deserter did to a Negro boy
when he found him alone was to cut off his ears. Besides, when I was
late in getting home I knew I would always get a severe scolding or a
flogging.
I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on
several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my
young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys
and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon
me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in
this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.
So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the fact
that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being discussed,
was early one morning before day, when I was awakened by my mother
kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln and his
armies might be successful, and that one day she and her children might
be free. In this connection I have never been able to understand how the
slaves throughout the South, completely ignorant as were the masses so
far as books or newspapers were concerned, were able to keep themselves
so accurately and completely informed about the great National questions
that were agitating the country. From the time that Garrison, Lovejoy,
and others began to agitate for freedom, the slaves throughout the South
kept in close touch with the progress of the movement. Though I was a
mere child during the preparation for the Civil War and during the war
itself, I now recall the many late-at-night whispered discussions that I
heard my mother and the other slaves on the plantation indulge in. These
discussions showed that they understood the situation, and that they
kept themselves informed of events by what was termed the "grape-vine"
telegraph.
During the campaign when Lincoln was first a candidate for the
Presidency, the slaves on our far-off plantation, miles from any
railroad or large city or daily newspaper, knew what the issues involved
were. When war was begun between the North and the South, every slave on
our plantation felt and knew that, though other issues were discussed,
the primal one was that of slavery. Even the most ignorant members of
my race on the remote plantations felt in their hearts, with a certainty
that admitted of no doubt, that the freedom of the slaves would be the
one great result of the war, if the northern armies conquered. Every
success of the Federal armies and every defeat of the Confederate forces
was watched with the keenest and most intense interest. Often the slaves
got knowledge of the results of great battles before the white people
received it. This news was usually gotten from the coloured man who was
sent to the post-office for the mail. In our case the post-office was
about three miles from the plantation, and the mail came once or twice
a week. The man who was sent to the office would linger about the place
long enough to get the drift of the conversation from the group of white
people who naturally congregated there, after receiving their mail,
to discuss the latest news. The mail-carrier on his way back to our
master's house would as naturally retail the news that he had secured
among the slaves, and in this way they often heard of important events
before the white people at the "big house," as the master's house was
called.
I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early
boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's
blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner.
On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were gotten by the
children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread
here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and
some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our family would eat
out of the skillet or pot, while some one else would eat from a tin
plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the hands with
which to hold the food. When I had grown to sufficient size, I was
required to go to the "big house" at meal-times to fan the flies from
the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley.
Naturally much of the conversation of the white people turned upon the
subject of freedom and the war, and I absorbed a good deal of it. I
remember that at one time I saw two of my young mistresses and some
lady visitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At that time those cakes
seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting and desirable things
that I had ever seen; and I then and there resolved that, if I ever got
free, the height of my ambition would be reached if I could get to the
point where I could secure and eat ginger-cakes in the way that I saw
those ladies doing.
Of course as the war was prolonged the white people, in many cases,
often found it difficult to secure food for themselves. I think the
slaves felt the deprivation less than the whites, because the usual diet
for slaves was corn bread and pork, and these could be raised on the
plantation; but coffee, tea, sugar, and other articles which the whites
had been accustomed to use could not be raised on the plantation, and
the conditions brought about by the war frequently made it impossible
to secure these things. The whites were often in great straits. Parched
corn was used for coffee, and a kind of black molasses was used instead
of sugar. Many times nothing was used to sweeten the so-called tea and
coffee.
The first pair of shoes that I recall wearing were wooden ones. They
had rough leather on the top, but the bottoms, which were about an
inch thick, were of wood. When I walked they made a fearful noise, and
besides this they were very inconvenient, since there was no yielding
to the natural pressure of the foot. In wearing them one presented and
exceedingly awkward appearance. The most trying ordeal that I was forced
to endure as a slave boy, however, was the wearing of a flax shirt. In
the portion of Virginia where I lived it was common to use flax as part
of the clothing for the slaves. That part of the flax from which our
clothing was made was largely the refuse, which of course was the
cheapest and roughest part. I can scarcely imagine any torture, except,
perhaps, the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting
on a new flax shirt for the first time. It is almost equal to the
feeling that one would experience if he had a dozen or more chestnut
burrs, or a hundred small pin-points, in contact with his flesh. Even
to this day I can recall accurately the tortures that I underwent when
putting on one of these garments. The fact that my flesh was soft and
tender added to the pain. But I had no choice. I had to wear the flax
shirt or none; and had it been left to me to choose, I should have
chosen to wear no covering. In connection with the flax shirt, my
brother John, who is several years older than I am, performed one of
the most generous acts that I ever heard of one slave relative doing for
another. On several occasions when I was being forced to wear a new flax
shirt, he generously agreed to put it on in my stead and wear it for
several days, till it was "broken in." Until I had grown to be quite a
youth this single garment was all that I wore.
One may get the idea, from what I have said, that there was bitter
feeling toward the white people on the part of my race, because of the
fact that most of the white population was away fighting in a war
which would result in keeping the Negro in slavery if the South was
successful. In the case of the slaves on our place this was not true,
and it was not true of any large portion of the slave population in the
South where the Negro was treated with anything like decency. During
the Civil War one of my young masters was killed, and two were severely
wounded. I recall the feeling of sorrow which existed among the slaves
when they heard of the death of "Mars' Billy." It was no sham sorrow,
but real. Some of the slaves had nursed "Mars' Billy"; others had played
with him when he was a child. "Mars' Billy" had begged for mercy in
the case of others when the overseer or master was thrashing them. The
sorrow in the slave quarter was only second to that in the "big house."
When the two young masters were brought home wounded, the sympathy of
the slaves was shown in many ways. They were just as anxious to assist
in the nursing as the family relatives of the wounded. Some of the
slaves would even beg for the privilege of sitting up at night to nurse
their wounded masters. This tenderness and sympathy on the part of those
held in bondage was a result of their kindly and generous nature. In
order to defend and protect the women and children who were left on the
plantations when the white males went to war, the slaves would have laid
down their lives. The slave who was selected to sleep in the "big house"
during the absence of the males was considered to have the place of
honour. Any one attempting to harm "young Mistress" or "old Mistress"
during the night would have had to cross the dead body of the slave to
do so. I do not know how many have noticed it, but I think that it will
be found to be true that there are few instances, either in slavery
or freedom, in which a member of my race has been known to betray a
specific trust.
As a rule, not only did the members of my race entertain no feelings of
bitterness against the whites before and during the war, but there are
many instances of Negroes tenderly caring for their former masters and
mistresses who for some reason have become poor and dependent since the
war. I know of instances where the former masters of slaves have for
years been supplied with money by their former slaves to keep them from
suffering. I have known of still other cases in which the former slaves
have assisted in the education of the descendants of their former
owners. I know of a case on a large plantation in the South in which a
young white man, the son of the former owner of the estate, has become
so reduced in purse and self-control by reason of drink that he is a
pitiable creature; and yet, notwithstanding the poverty of the coloured
people themselves on this plantation, they have for years supplied this
young white man with the necessities of life. One sends him a little
coffee or sugar, another a little meat, and so on. Nothing that the
coloured people possess is too good for the son of "old Mars' Tom," who
will perhaps never be permitted to suffer while any remain on the place
who knew directly or indirectly of "old Mars' Tom."
I have said that there are few instances of a member of my race
betraying a specific trust. One of the best illustrations of this which
I know of is in the case of an ex-slave from Virginia whom I met not
long ago in a little town in the state of Ohio. I found that this man
had made a contract with his master, two or three years previous to
the Emancipation Proclamation, to the effect that the slave was to be
permitted to buy himself, by paying so much per year for his body; and
while he was paying for himself, he was to be permitted to labour where
and for whom he pleased. Finding that he could secure better wages in
Ohio, he went there. When freedom came, he was still in debt to his
master some three hundred dollars. Notwithstanding that the Emancipation
Proclamation freed him from any obligation to his master, this black man
walked the greater portion of the distance back to where his old master
lived in Virginia, and placed the last dollar, with interest, in his
hands. In talking to me about this, the man told me that he knew that
he did not have to pay the debt, but that he had given his word to the
master, and his word he had never broken. He felt that he could not
enjoy his freedom till he had fulfilled his promise.
From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the
slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who
did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is
so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long
since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern
white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of
our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides,
it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government.
Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social
life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve
itself of the institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or
racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that,
notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million
Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors
went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more
hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously,
than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of
the globe. This is so to such an extent that Negroes in this country,
who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery,
are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those
who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery--on
the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in
America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not
from a missionary motive--but to call attention to a fact, and to
show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish
a purpose. When persons ask me in these days how, in the midst of what
sometimes seem hopelessly discouraging conditions, I can have such
faith in the future of my race in this country, I remind them of the
wilderness through which and out of which, a good Providence has already
led us.
Ever since I have been old enough to think for myself, I have
entertained the idea that, notwithstanding the cruel wrongs inflicted
upon us, the black man got nearly as much out of slavery as the white
man did. The hurtful influences of the institution were not by any means
confined to the Negro. This was fully illustrated by the life upon our
own plantation. The whole machinery of slavery was so constructed as to
cause labour, as a rule, to be looked upon as a badge of degradation,
of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave
plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large
measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white
people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as
I know, ever mastered a single trade or special line of productive
industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care of the
house. All of this was left to the slaves. The slaves, of course,
had little personal interest in the life of the plantation, and their
ignorance prevented them from learning how to do things in the most
improved and thorough manner. As a result of the system, fences were
out of repair, gates were hanging half off the hinges, doors creaked,
window-panes were out, plastering had fallen but was not replaced, weeds
grew in the yard. As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but
inside the house, and on the dining-room table, there was wanting that
delicacy and refinement of touch and finish which can make a home the
most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world. Withal
there was a waste of food and other materials which was sad. When
freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew
as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of
property. The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry.
They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not
the proper thing for them. On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases,
had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling,
to labour.
Finally the war closed, and the day of freedom came. It was a momentous
and eventful day to all upon our plantation. We had been expecting it.
Freedom was in the air, and had been for months. Deserting soldiers
returning to their homes were to be seen every day. Others who had been
discharged, or whose regiments had been paroled, were constantly passing
near our place. The "grape-vine telegraph" was kept busy night and day.
The news and mutterings of great events were swiftly carried from one
plantation to another. In the fear of "Yankee" invasions, the silverware
and other valuables were taken from the "big house," buried in the
woods, and guarded by trusted slaves. Woe be to any one who would have
attempted to disturb the buried treasure. The slaves would give the
Yankee soldiers food, drink, clothing--anything but that which had been
specifically intrusted to their care and honour. As the great day drew
nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It
was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the
verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom. True, they
had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain
that the "freedom" in these songs referred to the next world, and had
no connection with life in this world. Now they gradually threw off the
mask, and were not afraid to let it be known that the "freedom" in their
songs meant freedom of the body in this world. The night before the
eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that
something unusual was going to take place at the "big house" the next
morning. There was little, if any, sleep that night. All as excitement
and expectancy. Early the next morning word was sent to all the slaves,
old and young, to gather at the house. In company with my mother,
brother, and sister, and a large number of other slaves, I went to
the master's house. All of our master's family were either standing or
seated on the veranda of the house, where they could see what was to
take place and hear what was said. There was a feeling of deep interest,
or perhaps sadness, on their faces, but not bitterness. As I now recall
the impression they made upon me, they did not at the moment seem to be
sad because of the loss of property, but rather because of parting with
those whom they had reared and who were in many ways very close to them.
The most distinct thing that I now recall in connection with the scene
was that some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer,
I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper--the
Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that
we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother,
who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while
tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all
meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but
fearing that she would never live to see.
For some minutes there was great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild
scenes of ecstasy. But there was no feeling of bitterness. In fact,
there was pity among the slaves for our former owners. The wild
rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for
a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their
cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of
being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan
for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It
was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years
out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great
questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for
centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were
the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education,
citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any
wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling
of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed
that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more
serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves
were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had
no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among
strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of
abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep
down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to "old
Marster" and "old Missus," and to their children, which they found it
hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases
nearly a half-century, and it was no light thing to think of parting.
Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began
to wander from the slave quarters back to the "big house" to have a
whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future.
Chapter II. Boyhood Days
After the coming of freedom there were two points upon which practically
all the people on our place were agreed, and I found that this was
generally true throughout the South: that they must change their names,
and that they must leave the old plantation for at least a few days or
weeks in order that they might really feel sure that they were free.
In some way a feeling got among the coloured people that it was far from
proper for them to bear the surname of their former owners, and a great
many of them took other surnames. This was one of the first signs of
freedom. When they were slaves, a coloured person was simply called
"John" or "Susan." There was seldom occasion for more than the use of
the one name. If "John" or "Susan" belonged to a white man by the
name of "Hatcher," sometimes he was called "John Hatcher," or as
often "Hatcher's John." But there was a feeling that "John Hatcher" or
"Hatcher's John" was not the proper title by which to denote a freeman;
and so in many cases "John Hatcher" was changed to "John S. Lincoln" or
"John S. Sherman," the initial "S" standing for no name, it being simply
a part of what the coloured man proudly called his "entitles."
As I have stated, most of the coloured people left the old plantation
for a short while at least, so as to be sure, it seemed, that they
could leave and try their freedom on to see how it felt. After they
had remained away for a while, many of the older slaves, especially,
returned to their old homes and made some kind of contract with their
former owners by which they remained on the estate.
My mother's husband, who was the stepfather of my brother John and
myself, did not belong to the same owners as did my mother. In fact, he
seldom came to our plantation. I remember seeing him there perhaps once
a year, that being about Christmas time. In some way, during the war, by
running away and following the Federal soldiers, it seems, he found
his way into the new state of West Virginia. As soon as freedom was
declared, he sent for my mother to come to the Kanawha Valley, in West
Virginia. At that time a journey from Virginia over the mountains
to West Virginia was rather a tedious and in some cases a painful
undertaking. What little clothing and few household goods we had were
placed in a cart, but the children walked the greater portion of the
distance, which was several hundred miles.
I do not think any of us ever had been very far from the plantation, and
the taking of a long journey into another state was quite an event. The
parting from our former owners and the members of our own race on the
plantation was a serious occasion. From the time of our parting till
their death we kept up a correspondence with the older members of the
family, and in later years we have kept in touch with those who were the
younger members. We were several weeks making the trip, and most of
the time we slept in the open air and did our cooking over a log fire
out-of-doors. One night I recall that we camped near an abandoned log
cabin, and my mother decided to build a fire in that for cooking, and
afterward to make a "pallet" on the floor for our sleeping. Just as the
fire had gotten well started a large black snake fully a yard and a half
long dropped down the chimney and ran out on the floor. Of course we at
once abandoned that cabin. Finally we reached our destination--a little
town called Malden, which is about five miles from Charleston, the
present capital of the state.
At that time salt-mining was the great industry in that part of West
Virginia, and the little town of Malden was right in the midst of
the salt-furnaces. My stepfather had already secured a job at a
salt-furnace, and he had also secured a little cabin for us to live
in. Our new house was no better than the one we had left on the
old plantation in Virginia. In fact, in one respect it was worse.
Notwithstanding the poor condition of our plantation cabin, we were at
all times sure of pure air. Our new home was in the midst of a cluster
of cabins crowded closely together, and as there were no sanitary
regulations, the filth about the cabins was often intolerable. Some of
our neighbours were coloured people, and some were the poorest and most
ignorant and degraded white people. It was a motley mixture. Drinking,
gambling, quarrels, fights, and shockingly immoral practices were
frequent. All who lived in the little town were in one way or another
connected with the salt business. Though I was a mere child, my
stepfather put me and my brother at work in one of the furnaces. Often I
began work as early as four o'clock in the morning.
The first thing I ever learned in the way of book knowledge was while
working in this salt-furnace. Each salt-packer had his barrels marked
with a certain number. The number allotted to my stepfather was "18."
At the close of the day's work the boss of the packers would come around
and put "18" on each of our barrels, and I soon learned to recognize
that figure wherever I saw it, and after a while got to the point where
I could make that figure, though I knew nothing about any other figures
or letters.
From the time that I can remember having any thoughts about anything,
I recall that I had an intense longing to learn to read. I determined,
when quite a small child, that, if I accomplished nothing else in life,
I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common
books and newspapers. Soon after we got settled in some manner in our
new cabin in West Virginia, I induced my mother to get hold of a book
for me. How or where she got it I do not know, but in some way she
procured an old copy of Webster's "blue-back" spelling-book, which
contained the alphabet, followed by such meaningless words as "ab,"
"ba," "ca," "da." I began at once to devour this book, and I think that
it was the first one I ever had in my hands. I had learned from somebody
that the way to begin to read was to learn the alphabet, so I tried
in all the ways I could think of to learn it,--all of course without a
teacher, for I could find no one to teach me. At that time there was not
a single member of my race anywhere near us who could read, and I was
too timid to approach any of the white people. In some way, within a few
weeks, I mastered the greater portion of the alphabet. In all my efforts
to learn to read my mother shared fully my ambition, and sympathized
with me and aided me in every way that she could. Though she was totally
ignorant, she had high ambitions for her children, and a large fund of
good, hard, common sense, which seemed to enable her to meet and master
every situation. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel
sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
In the midst of my struggles and longing for an education, a young
coloured boy who had learned to read in the state of Ohio came to
Malden. As soon as the coloured people found out that he could read, a
newspaper was secured, and at the close of nearly every day's work
this young man would be surrounded by a group of men and women who were
anxious to hear him read the news contained in the papers. How I used to
envy this man! He seemed to me to be the one young man in all the world
who ought to be satisfied with his attainments.
About this time the question of having some kind of a school opened for
the coloured children in the village began to be discussed by members
of the race. As it would be the first school for Negro children that had
ever been opened in that part of Virginia, it was, of course, to be a
great event, and the discussion excited the wildest interest. The most
perplexing question was where to find a teacher. The young man from
Ohio who had learned to read the papers was considered, but his age was
against him. In the midst of the discussion about a teacher, another
young coloured man from Ohio, who had been a soldier, in some way found
his way into town. It was soon learned that he possessed considerable
education, and he was engaged by the coloured people to teach their
first school. As yet no free schools had been started for coloured
people in that section, hence each family agreed to pay a certain
amount per month, with the understanding that the teacher was to "board
'round"--that is, spend a day with each family. This was not bad for the
teacher, for each family tried to provide the very best on the day the
teacher was to be its guest. I recall that I looked forward with an
anxious appetite to the "teacher's day" at our little cabin.
This experience of a whole race beginning to go to school for the
first time, presents one of the most interesting studies that has ever
occurred in connection with the development of any race. Few people who
were not right in the midst of the scenes can form any exact idea of the
intense desire which the people of my race showed for an education. As
I have stated, it was a whole race trying to go to school. Few were too
young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn. As fast as any
kind of teachers could be secured, not only were day-schools filled, but
night-schools as well. The great ambition of the older people was to try
to learn to read the Bible before they died. With this end in view men
and women who were fifty or seventy-five years old would often be found
in the night-school. Some day-schools were formed soon after
freedom, but the principal book studied in the Sunday-school was the
spelling-book. Day-school, night-school, Sunday-school, were always
crowded, and often many had to be turned away for want of room.
The opening of the school in the Kanawha Valley, however, brought to me
one of the keenest disappointments that I ever experienced. I had been
working in a salt-furnace for several months, and my stepfather had
discovered that I had a financial value, and so, when the school opened,
he decided that he could not spare me from my work. This decision seemed
to cloud my every ambition. The disappointment was made all the more
severe by reason of the fact that my place of work was where I could see
the happy children passing to and from school mornings and afternoons.
Despite this disappointment, however, I determined that I would learn
something, anyway. I applied myself with greater earnestness than ever
to the mastering of what was in the "blue-back" speller.
My mother sympathized with me in my disappointment, and sought to
comfort me in all the ways she could, and to help me find a way to
learn. After a while I succeeded in making arrangements with the teacher
to give me some lessons at night, after the day's work was done. These
night lessons were so welcome that I think I learned more at night
than the other children did during the day. My own experiences in the
night-school gave me faith in the night-school idea, with which, in
after years, I had to do both at Hampton and Tuskegee. But my boyish
heart was still set upon going to the day-school, and I let no
opportunity slip to push my case. Finally I won, and was permitted to go
to the school in the day for a few months, with the understanding that
I was to rise early in the morning and work in the furnace till nine
o'clock, and return immediately after school closed in the afternoon for
at least two more hours of work.
The schoolhouse was some distance from the furnace, and as I had to work
till nine o'clock, and the school opened at nine, I found myself in
a difficulty. School would always be begun before I reached it, and
sometimes my class had recited. To get around this difficulty I yielded
to a temptation for which most people, I suppose, will condemn me; but
since it is a fact, I might as well state it. I have great faith in the
power and influence of facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently
gained by holding back a fact. There was a large clock in a little
office in the furnace. This clock, of course, all the hundred or more
workmen depended upon to regulate their hours of beginning and ending
the day's work. I got the idea that the way for me to reach school on
time was to move the clock hands from half-past eight up to the nine
o'clock mark. This I found myself doing morning after morning, till the
furnace "boss" discovered that something was wrong, and locked the clock
in a case. I did not mean to inconvenience anybody. I simply meant to
reach that schoolhouse in time.
When, however, I found myself at the school for the first time, I also
found myself confronted with two other difficulties. In the first place,
I found that all the other children wore hats or caps on their heads,
and I had neither hat nor cap. In fact, I do not remember that up to
the time of going to school I had ever worn any kind of covering upon
my head, nor do I recall that either I or anybody else had even thought
anything about the need of covering for my head. But, of course, when
I saw how all the other boys were dressed, I began to feel quite
uncomfortable. As usual, I put the case before my mother, and she
explained to me that she had no money with which to buy a "store hat,"
which was a rather new institution at that time among the members of my
race and was considered quite the thing for young and old to own,
but that she would find a way to help me out of the difficulty.
She accordingly got two pieces of "homespun" (jeans) and sewed them
together, and I was soon the proud possessor of my first cap.
The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me,
and I have tried as best as I could to teach it to others. I have
always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother
had strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation
of seeming to be that which she was not--of trying to impress my
schoolmates and others with the fact that she was able to buy me a
"store hat" when she was not. I have always felt proud that she refused
to go into debt for that which she did not have the money to pay for.
Since that time I have owned many kinds of caps and hats, but never one