The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 45
As I began to approach the neighborhood of Loosahatchie, I perceived, at a distance on the road, a group of men on horseback, upon whom, as they moved at a very slow pace, I gained rapidly.. As I drew nearer, the group presented a very striking appearance. There were twelve or fifteen fierce-looking white men, very variously mounted, with rifles in their hands, and well provided with pistols and bowie knives, their dresses bedaubed with half-dry mud, as though they had been engaged in some aquatic expedition. A negro fellow, who followed on foot, and by the side of whom, with a sharp eye upon him, rode a white man armed to the teeth, held in leash some four or five savage-looking dogs, which I easily recognized as of the breed usually trained and employed for hunting runaway slaves, But the most remarkable objects, and those upon which the attention of the white men of the company seemed to be fixed with looks gloomy and ferocious, though not unmingled with triumph, were near the centre of the group, a little in front. Here I perceived the apparently lifeless body of a white man, whose pale features bore still a scowl of brutal rage upon them, that contrasted strangely with their death-like fixedness. ‘The clothes, muddy and torn, as if in some recent struggle, were all dabbled with blood, which seemed still to ooze from a fatal wound in the breast. The body had been secured on the back of a horse, which was led by a negro man, whose blank and stolid features, upon which, however, I thought I could trace a certain obscure gleam of repressed satisfaction, presented a curious contrast, as did that of the black man who led the hounds, to the fierce, furious, and indignant looks of the white men.
Side by side with this dead body rode a black man, wounded and bleeding, and evidently a prisoner, for his feet were tied together under the horse's belly, and his hands bound behind him. "He was a man of most powerful and athletic frame, verging on old age, with an enormous bushy beard, weak, apparently from his wounds, and almost fainting, so that it seemed with great difficulty that he kept erect; yet, in spite of his feebleness and captivity, and the vengeful glances mixed with occasional curses, which his captors directed at him, still preserving, in a certain haughty and dogged aspect of defiance, the look of one who had been long accustomed to liberty.
There was another captive in the company on foot, with a rope round his neck fastened to the saddle of one of the white men, of a lighter color than the mounted prisoner, barefoot and bareheaded, as was the other, and with very scanty clothing. He did not. appear to be wounded; but his back was all cut and bleeding, as if he had just undergone a most severe flagellation, and his woful, supplicating, subdued look made the sullen, defiant air of bis fellow-captive on horseback the more remarkable.
Riding up by the side of the mounted master of the hounds, who brought up the rear of this strange cayalcade, I inquired what had happened. It was apparent from his manner and language, notwithstanding the rude company in which I found him, that he was a person of cultivation, not unaccustomed to civilized society. Indeed, it soon appeared that he was the owner of a neighboring plantation, who, with some of his friends and neighbors, and other rougher professional assistants, engaged for the occasion, had been out on a grand slave hunt. The dead man they were bringing back was, he told me, no other than his own overseer.
This overseer was, he said, a very smart, driving fellow, a Yankee, who had first visited that part of the country as a pedler, but who had afterwards turned schoolmaster, and then overseer. It was generally observed, that these Yankee overseers would contrive to get the most work out of the people, and being somewhat in debt, he had employed him on that very account. But in the great ambition of Mr Jonathan Snapdragon — for such was his name — to sustain the reputation of the section of the country from which he came, he had rather overdone the matter. The price of cotton was unusually high, and in hope of making an extraordinary crop, this Yankee overseer had resolved to work a couple more acres to the hand than had ever before been attempted on that plantation. What made the matter worse, the corn, of which the crop in all that section of the country had been light the preceding year, fell short, and it became, necessary, in addition to the increased tasks, to put the people on half allowance. However, by means of a pretty liberal use of the whip, in which the Yankee overseer was a great adept, and which he seemed to take a real delight in, things had worried along till just at the pinch of the season, when it all depended upon three or four weeks of most assiduous labor, whether the weeds or the cotton should gain the ultimate ascendency. Just at this crisis of the fate of the crop, when their services were most wanted, all the prime male hands had scurvily skulked off a few nights since into the woods, leaving the overseer with the women, children, and sick, to contend against the weeds as best he could; and that, too, said my communicative planter, looking at me with the air of a most ill-treated man, and as if sure of my sympathy, with cotton at sixteen cents the pound, and promising to be higher yet by the time the crop was ready for the market.
There had, he told me, been prowling about in that neighborhood, for a great many years past, perhaps twenty or more, to the infinite annoyance of the whole country, a runaway negro, known commonly among the people as Wild Tom. He was believed to belong to old general Carter, a rich planter, of Charleston, who had long ago offered a standing reward of a thousand dollars for his capture, dead or alive. The story was, that he had run away from Loosahatchie, one of general Carter's rice plantations some distance below, after having first killed the overseer in some quarrel about whipping his wife ; and the burning down of the expensive rice mills at Loosahatchie, which had happened no less than five or six times within the last twenty years, had been commonly ascribed to his artful and daring malice and revenge.
Great efforts had been made at times to take this dangerous outlaw, and many ingenious plans had been formed to entrap him, but all had hitherto failed, not without the desperate wounding of several persons who had met him in personal encounter. He seemed to have various lurking-places, scattered over a considerable range of country, from one to another of which he fled, as occasion required, thus eluding all attempts at his capture. Sometimes, when the pursuit after him had been very hot, he would seem to disappear for months, or even a year or two, but was pretty certain to make his reappearance when least expected and least welcome. Had he merely confined himself to the petty depredations necessary to support himself and his band of confederates, the matter would have been of less consequence ; but he was believed to keep up an underhand communication with almost every plantation in the neighborhood, and to be a general instructor in mischief and insubordination, an aider and abetter of runaways, and harborer of fugitives.
This same Wild Tom had been seen, within a short time past, lurking about in the neighborhood; and it was suspected that the late stampede had not taken place without his aid and assistance. It was deemed a much easier thing to find and to take him encumbered by a dozen or twenty raw recruits than if alone, or only attended, as he generally was, or at least was generally supposed to be, for in all that was commonly reported of him, there was a great deal more of conjecture than of knowledge,—by one or two trusty, tried, and experienced companions. With my new acquaintance, the planter, — from whom I was deriving all this information, in which, since he had made mention of Wild Tom, 1 began to feel the deepest interest, —the recovery of his people was a matter almost of life and death, pecuniarily speaking, since, unless they were recovered, it would be necessary for him to abandon half or more of his crop, and that too with cotton at sixteen cents the pound, and promising to be higher; for hired free laborers were things unknown in that part of the country, nor could even slave labor be hired at that season of the year, when every body was straining for dear life against the weeds, and when the ordinary supply of almost every plantation was expected to be diminished by the absence of a certain number of incorrigible fellows, who make it a rule, just at that season, to absent themselves for a summer vacation in the woods, being willing to risk the severest punishment they might encounter when taken, for the sake, at that particular season of the year and the crop, of a few weeks of agreeable woodland retirement. And here, indeed, a strong resemblance might be traced between them and very many of their masters, who, as the hot weather and unhealthy season came on, were accustomed to abandon their plantations, and to figure away for a few weeks, as grand as runaway Cuffee himself, at Philadelphia, New York, or Saratoga, to the astonishment of admiring and curious Yankees, in the assumed character of millionaires and nabobs; though sure to pay for it by pinching at home all the rest of the year, and living in almost as much terror of duns, writs, and executions, as their unhappy slaves do of the lash. In this extremity, therefore, my new acquaintance had offered a large reward for the recovery of his people ; to which inducement was added the standing reward for Wild Tom; also other rewards which had been offered for other runaways from other plantations in the neighborhood, more numerous this year than usual on account of the short supply of corn, and the greater breadth of cotton, which the prevailing high price had caused to be planted. A grand hunt had accordingly been proclaimed, and at short notice a company of near a hundred men had been collected, planters, overseers, loafers, poor whites, with four or five professional slave catchers, and several packs of hounds, armed to the teeth, and prepared to make a search of the neighboring swamps, in which it was customary for the runaways to take refuge, lying hid by day, and coming out by night to supply themselves by killing cattle and otherwise, and to communicate with their wives and friends who remained behind. The season indeed was very favorable to this operation, an uncommonly long drought having dried up the swamps to a considerable extent, and made them much more accessible than usual.
The entire company had been accordingly divided into five or six divisions, each to carry on operations by itself, and each provided with its pack of dogs, that into whose company I had fallen — I speak here not so much of the dogs as of the men — being one of them. What had been the success of the other parties my informant could not tell. What I saw before me indicated, in a general way, the mixed fortune which his party had encountered.
It had been appointed to them as their duty to search a swamp of no great extent, but very inaccessible on account of the unusual depth of the mud and water, in many places over a man's head, in the centre of which was a small island of firm land, believed to be a favorite lurking-place of Wild Tom's, who was supposed to know better than any body else the most convenient approaches to it.
Within half a mile from the swamp the dogs had started the lighter colored of the two prisoners, upon whom they came suddenly as he Jay concealed in the long grass, hoping to escape observation. As the party were close by, the dogs were prevented from tearing him, and he was made prisoner without trouble. The mud on his feet and legs, and the wetness of the scanty fragments of clothing that he wore, afforded pretty strong indications that he had lately come from the swamp island, which it was the object of the party to search. He was charged with this, but affected the most stolid ignorance of the existence of any such island, or swamp either. When questioned whence he came, and whom he belonged to, he acknowledged himself a runaway from a rice plantation below, who had lately wandered into this vicinity, of which he professed an entire ignorance, declaring himself to be dying of hunger, and not to have eaten any thing hardly for a week — a story to which his plump and comfortable aspect did not give much credit. He acknowledged having heard of Wild Tom, who indeed figured largely in the current legends, white and negro, of all that region; but denied most positively ever having seen him, or knowing any thing of any other runaways.
These protestations, however, did not satisfy, and to make him confess, he was tied up and whipped till he fainted; but while begging for mercy, he still insisted on the truth of his story, and that he had nothing further to tell.
This experiment having failed, he was placed on the stump of a fallen tree, and a rope being put round his neck and fastened to a branch above, he was threatened with instant hanging if he did not confess. Still he continued dogged as ever, when one of the company pushed him off the stump, and allowed him to swing till he grew black in the face. He was then placed back upon the stump, the rope loosened, and himself supported by the two or three slaves who accompanied the party. At length beginning to recover himself, whether out of terror of death, or the confusion of his ideas and the destruction of his self-control by the pressure of blood upon the brain, he began to confess freely enough that he had just come from the swamp island, and that Wild Tom was there; but he denied all knowledge of any other runaways, or that Wild Tom had any body with him.
The prospect of capturing this celebrated outlaw, the glory thus to be gained, and the public service to be rendered, — not to mention the thousand dollars reward, — produced a great sensation in the company; though, till it had first been ascertained, by further inquiries from the confessing prisoner, that his formidable chief had neither rifle, pistol, nor fire arms of any sort, no arms in fact but a knife, there did seem to be some little lack of vigor in proceeding with the business; so my planter informant told me, lowering his voice, and casting a knowing glance, with a significant smile, at two or three of the fiercest looking fellows in the cavalcade before us — one in particular, who bestowed every now and then very savage looks on the mounted prisoner, and seemed with difficulty to keep his hands off him.
To make all sure, eight or ten of the company were sent to patrol on horseback round the edges of the swamp, together with all the dogs but one, while five or six of the strongest and most resolute proposed to penetrate the interior, and to storm the island retreat. The prisoner, with the rope still about his neck, the other end made fast to the waist of one of the stoutest of the company, was required to serve as guide; and though he protested that he knew nothing in particular of the approaches to the island, he was threatened with instant death in case he did not conduct them safely and expeditiously across. The fellow, however, whether through ignorance or design, led them into very deep water, in some places fairly up to their necks, through which they were obliged to wade, holding their rifles and powder horns over their heads; and in spite of every effort to keep him quiet, as the party drew near the island, he would insist on crying out, as if giving directions as to the passage, but, as was strongly suspected, with the real design of alarming his confederate. And, indeed, before the party could make good their footing on the island, he had already taken the alarm, and had plunged into the water on the other side. He had gained a considerable distance before he was seen, and as he dodged behind the great trees of the swamp, several rifle shots fired at him failed to take effect. In plunged the others in fresh pursuit, while the fugitive, engrossed by this danger behind, made the best of his way through the mud and water, till he gained the firm land on the other side of the swamp, where he encountered a new danger; being seen by one of the scouts patrolling along the edge. As he bounded through the piny woods like a deer, a rifle shot grazed his side, and though it did not bring him down, yet it materially checked the swiftness of his flight. Four or five horsemen were soon upon his track. Snapdragon, the overseer, leading in the chase, soon came up with the flying negro; and after vainly calling to him to yield, and firing his pistols with only partial effect, sprang from his horse, and attempted to seize him. Snapdragon was a powerful man, but he had now found his match. Wild Tom, if indeed it were really he, exhausted and wounded as he was, caught his assailant in his arms, and as they rolled upon the ground, the negro’s knife was not long in finding its way to the overseer’s heart. But already the dogs and the other pursuers were upon him, and before he could disengage himself, he was made a prisoner, and securely bound. It was not jong before the whole party was assembled, when some of the more violent proposed to revenge the dead overseer by putting the new prisoner to death on the spot. But the pleasure and glory of making a parade and exhibition of their prize, and the necessity, too, in order to secure the promised reward, to identify him as general Carter’s runaway, had stayed this summary procedure; and it had been resolved forthwith to hasten to the village, which served as seat of justice for the county, to commit the prisoners to jail.
We were already in the near vicinity of the county seat, which proved to be a more considerable village than usual, and from which, as if by some premonition of our coming, issued to meet us a most miscellaneous multitude; of all colors, white, brown, and black; of every age, from infants scarcely able to go alone to old negroes with heads perfectly white, making their way, staff in hand; and of almost every variety of equipment, from the well-dressed and well-mounted planters to little negro boys, perfectly naked, riding on sticks by way of horses, and shouting and screaming like so many witch urchins.
Great time it was at the village of Eglinton, to which three or four other parties of the grand hunt had lately returned, not unsuccessful. As we approached the jail, — a little wretched brick building, containing a single room of ten or twelve feet square, with one little grated window, whence proceeded a steam and stench perceptible at a considerable distance, — we found it crammed completely full of recaptured negroes, some of them severely wounded, tumbled pellmell into this Black Hole, which contained also two white women, committed on some charge of theft; the slaves to be detained until their masters should come forward and pay the promised reward for their capture, together with certain fees and charges which the law allows in such cases.
By way of refreshment after their fatigues, and in commemoration of their prowess, these successful men hunters had indulged in pretty copious draughts of peach brandy and whiskey; and the dead body of the overseer, conveyed to the tavern and laid out upon the table, soon wrought up those who gazed at it into a state of furious indignation.
As it was absolutely impossible to thrust any more prisoners into the jail, the two taken by the company to which I had attached myself, after being fettered and handcuffed, had been fastened by heavy chains to the iron bars of the prison window grating.
It was only by the greatest efforts that I mastered my emotions, as, making my way among the crowd of blacks and whites that gathered around him, I approached the one supposed to be Wild Tom. I bent upon him a scrutinizing eye. He was greatly altered; yet I did not fail to recognize the features, too strongly impressed upon my mind ever to be forgotten, of my old friend and compatriot of twenty years before. I had expected it; yet what an agony shot through my heart to know it! It was necessary, however, to control myself, and I did. I spoke a few words, when, satisfied by my tone and look that I felt a sympathy for him, he laid aside, for a moment, that air of proud defiance with which, like a lion in the toils, he had glanced round on the crowd, and with a tone of entreaty begged me fora drink of water. By the promise of half a dollar, I induced one of the negroes to bring me a large gourd full; but just as the wounded prisoner was slowly raising it with his manacled arms to his lips,a well-dressed white man struck it with a stick which he held in his hand, and dashed it to the ground. I could not refrain from some words of protest against this piece of wanton cruelty; but the man with the stick turned upon me with a volley of oaths, inquired who I was, that dared to comfort this infernal negro murderer, and by drawing the eyes of the company upon me as a stranger, began to make my position very uncomfortable.
Just at this moment we heard a loud shout at the tavern door, at no great distance, followed up by a vigorous fight and a great uproar, as it seemed, between two parties into which the crowd assembled there had become divided. This drew off all those who had collected about the prisoners, except the negro man who had brought the water, and who still stuck by, to keep me in remembrance of the half dollar; and by the promise to double it, I succeeded in obtaining another gourd full, from which my poor captured friend was enabled without interruption to quench his feverish thirst. As he dropped the empty gourd, he turned to me an eye of acknowledgment. Thank Heaven, that in his distress and extremity, I was enabled to do for him even so much as this!
Incapable as I was of affording any succor, I felt an invincible desire to make myself known to him. I felt, indeed, that to his noble and generous soul it would afford a glow of satisfaction, even in the depth of his own distress, to know of the welfare of his old "friend and confederate. I stepped close to him, and, placing my hand on his arm, I said, in a whisper, "Thomas, do you know me? Remember Loosahatchie! Remember Ann, how she was murdered, and how you vowed vengeance over her grave! Remember Martin, the overseer, and how we buried him and the bloodhound together! Remember our parting, when I went north and you went south! I am Archy; do you know me?"
How keenly he fixed his eyes upon me as I began! With what devouring glances he gazed at me as I went on! I, too, was greatly altered — far more than he; but before I had spoken my name, I saw that he knew me. But in an instant, his eye glancing from me, that momentary gleam of joyous surprise which had lighted up his face passed suddenly away, and his features again resumed that sullen look of defiance, which seemed to say to his captors, "Do your worst; I am ready."
I felt at that same moment a hand rudely laid on my shoulder, while a voice, which I recognized as that of the same man who had dashed the calabash of water from Thomas's grasp, exclaimed, with a volley of oaths, "What the devil are you doing here in close confab with this murderer? I tell you, stranger, you don't leave here without giving an account of yourself!"
At the same time a number of men, rushing up to Thomas, began to unfasten the chains from the prison bars, and to conduct him towards the door of the tavern.
The fight had been between the more drunken and infuriated portion of the company, who, enraged at the sight of the dead overseer, wished to try and execute Thomas at once, and those who had wished to await the arrival of general Carter, for whom a messenger had been sent, and to delay final proceedings till the prisoner had first been identified as the veritable Wild Tom, and general Carter's property, lest otherwise there might be some difficulty in recovering the promised reward.
The more violent and drunken party had, however, prevailed; a court of three freeholders had been organized on the spot, and Thomas, again surrounded by a rabble of blacks and whites, was now brought before this august tribunal. I was myself at the same time taken into custody as a suspected person, with an intimation that my case should be attended to as soon as that of the negro was disposed of.
"Whom do you belong to?" Such was the first question which the honorable court addressed to the prisoner.
"I belong," answered Thomas, with much solemnity, "to the God who made us all!" A reply so unusual was received by some with a stare, by others with a laugh, redoubled at the repartee by one of the judges, "To God, ah! I rather reckon you belong to the devil! Any how, he'll very soon have you."
To reiterated demands as to whose property he was, Thomas steadily replied that he was a free man; when the same witty judge raised a new laugh by requesting him to show his free papers.
The court, after hearing a witness or two, pronounced him guilty of the murder of the overseer, after which he was asked, with a sort of mock solemnity, if he had any thing to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him.
"Go on," said the indignant culprit; "hang me, kill me, do your will! I was held a slave for the best years of my life. My wife was flogged to death before my eyes. Asa free man, you have hunted me -with bloodhounds, and shot at me with rifles, and placed a price upon my head. Long have I fooled you, and paid you back in your own coin. That white man to-day was not the first who has found me _ too much for him. One by one, two by two, three by
three, I defy and would whip the whole of you, but the whole dozen, mounted and armed, with dogs to boot, were too much for one poor black man, with nothing but his feet, his hands, and his knife. They have not always been too much; but I am getting old. Better die now, while I have strength and courage to defy your worst, than fall into your hands a broken-down old man."
These words of defiance wrought up the assembled mob of planters and overseers to a fury perfectly devilish. "Hanging is too good for him," some of them cried out; and presently the awful cry was raised, "Burn him! burn him!" No sooner was the horrible idea suggested, than volunteers were found to prepare to carry it into execution. It was in vain that I, and indeed two or three of those who had been engaged in the capture of Thomas, and among them the planter by whose side I had ridden, and from whom I had heard the story of it, remonstrated against this horrible and illegal cruelty. The same brutal scoundrel who had dashed the water from Thomas's lips now stood forward as the leader and manager of this new atrocity. It was necessary, he said, with the country agitated by abolition incendiaries, some of them, he repeated, — and here he cast a malignant glance at me, — in communication with this very outlaw, now that they had him in their power, to make an example of him. This Wild Tom had been the terror of the whole neighborhood for years. The stories of his exploits, circulating among the negroes, had done infinite damage, and might make many imitators. It was necessary, therefore, to counteract this impression by having his career terminate in a way to inspire awe and terror.
A pile of light wood was soon collected, and the victim of slaveholding vengeance was placed in the midst of it.
The pile was then lighted, and the smoke and flames began to wreathe above his head. But even yet unsubdued, he looked round on his shouting tormentors with a smile of contemptuous defiance.
Unable to endure the horrid spectacle, I attempted to rush from among the crowd; but I found myself watched, and directly I was seized, and, by orders of the self-appointed master of ceremonies of this horrible scene, conveyed close to the burning pile, as one on whom the spectacle of such an execution might make a salutary impression.
Thomas recognized me, — at least I thought so, — from amid the flames, and he lifted up his arm, as if to bid me farewell.
O, the horrible agony of that moment! Had I myself been in the place of my friend, could I have suffered more? My heartstrings seemed to crack; the blood rushed in a torrent to my brain. Nature could not endure it. I dropped fainting and senseless to the ground.