The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive

by Richard Hildreth

 

the successful manhunt

THE

 

WHITE SLAVE;

 

OR,

 

MEMOIRS OF A FUGITIVE.

 

---

 

⁠“All men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity, namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing happiness and safety.”—Virginia Bill of Rights, Art. I.

 

---

 

BOSTON:
TAPPAN AND WHITTEMORE.

MILWAUKIE, WIS.:
ROOD AND WHITTEMORE.
1852.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the years 1852, by

TAPPAN AND WHITTEMORE,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

 

PRESS OF G. C. RAND, CORNHILL, BOSTON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The earlier chapters of this book were written on a southern plantation, during that same summer in which the concluding events of the story are supposed to happen, and in the midst of scenes and persons suggestive of those which the book attempts to portray. Some readers may perhaps recognize in them a story with which they have before met. The latter portion is new; a continuation originally intended, and often called for, but never before published.

 

 

CONTENTS
Chapter 1	Memoirs	5
Chapter 2	The county in which I was born	7
Chapter 3	That education is the most effectual	11
Chapter 4	I was about seventeen years old	18
Chapter 5	The family of colonel Moore	21
Chapter 6	I had the same task with those	28
Chapter 7	It would be irksome to myself	31
Chapter 8	It was impossible for my wife	39
Chapter 9	I knew that the place where	46
Chapter 10	I learned afterwards	58
Chapter 11	It was past noon before we arrived at	62
Chapter 12	When I recovered my senses	66
Chapter 13	The next day I was to be sold	70
Chapter 14	When my new master learned that	74
Chapter 15	Some persons perhaps may think that	84
Chapter 16	It is the lot of the slave	90
Chapter 17	We were driven into the prison-yard	98
Chapter 18	I had been in the jail ten days	102
Chapter 19	We remained in jail some three weeks	108
Chapter 20	I had not been long in Mr Carleton's	117
Chapter 21	It seemed to be with the greatest	125
Chapter 22	Before we had half-finished what we had	148
Chapter 23	I have before observed that Sunday	156
Chapter 24	One Sunday morning when the boy	160
Chapter 25	When I got back to Carleton-Hall	162
Chapter 26	At length we arrived at Charleston	168
Chapter 27	Among Mr Carleton's servants	173
Chapter 28	It is customary in South Carolina	182
Chapter 29	Since the death of his wife	189
Chapter 30	The authority of masters over their slaves	197
Chapter 31	We scraped a shallow grave	205
Chapter 32	By the end of the winter	210
Chapter 33	We travelled slowly all that night	213
Chapter 34	I walked on as fast as I was able	220
Chapter 35	The favorable breezes	227
Chapter 36	We had a short passage to Liverpool	231
Chapter 37	Having formed the resolve recorded	238
Chapter 38	Having reached Richmond on my	246
Chapter 39	Returning to Richmond	249
Chapter 40	I lost not a moment in profiting	255
Chapter 41	Two or three days after my arrival at	261
Chapter 42	Returning the next day to Carleton Hall	267
Chapter 43	Mr Telfair, perhaps from professional	275
Chapter 44	In leaving Mr Mason's hospitable mansion	284
Chapter 45	As I began to approach the neighborhood	291
Chapter 46	When I recovered my senses	305
Chapter 47	Shortly after arriving at Charleston	309
Chapter 48	Hitherto, during my journey southward	314
Chapter 49	The stage coach stopped for dinner at	321
Chapter 50	As the late clerk, bookkeeper	325
Chapter 51	Mastering my emotion as well as I could	332
Chapter 52	It was not very difficult to discover	343
Chapter 53	Leaving my new acquaintance behind	347
Chapter 54	As I entered the town of Vicksburg	351
Chapter 55	Having written a letter of inquiry to	378
Chapter 56	The new mistress — into whose hands	389
Chapter 57	On Mr Colter’s suggestion	390
Chapter 58	Poor Eliza! Poor child indeed	398
Chapter 59	The very next morning	430