Liberty AttainedTRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM--A WANDERER IN NEW YORK--FEELINGS ON REACHING THAT CITY--AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE MET--UNFAVORABLE IMPRESSIONS--LONELINESS AND INSECURITY--APOLOGY FORSLAVES WHO RETURN TO THEIR MASTERS--COMPELLED TO TELL MYCONDITION--SUCCORED BY A SAILOR--DAVID RUGGLES--THE UNDERGROUNDRAILROAD--MARRIAGE--BAGGAGE TAKEN FROM ME--KINDNESS OF NATHANJOHNSON--MY CHANGE OF NAME--DARK NOTIONS OF NORTHERNCIVILIZATION--THE CONTRAST--COLORED PEOPLE IN NEW BEDFORD--ANINCIDENT ILLUSTRATING THEIR SPIRIT--A COMMON LABORER--DENIED WORKAT MY TRADE--THE FIRST WINTER AT THE NORTH--REPULSE AT THE DOORSOF THE CHURCH--SANCTIFIED HATE--THE _Liberator_ AND ITS EDITOR.
There is no necessity for any extended notice of the incidents of this part of my life. There is nothing very striking or peculiar about my career as a freeman, when viewed apart from my life as a slave. The relation subsisting between my early experience and that which I am now about to narrate, is, perhaps, my best apology for adding another chapter to this book.
Disappearing from the kind reader, in a flying cloud or balloon (pardon the figure), driven by the wind, and knowing not where Ishould land--whether in slavery or in *******--it is proper that I should remove, at once, all anxiety, by frankly ****** known where I alighted. The flight was a bold and perilous one; but here I am, in the great city of New York, safe and sound, without loss of blood or bone. In less than a week after leaving Baltimore, I was walking amid the hurrying throng, and gazing upon the dazzling wonders of Broadway. The dreams <262>of my childhood and the purposes of my manhood were now fulfilled. Afree state around me, and a free earth under my feet! What a moment was this to me! A whole year was pressed into a single day. A new world burst upon my agitated vision. I have often been asked, by kind friends to whom I have told my story, how Ifelt when first I found myself beyond the limits of slavery; and I must say here, as I have often said to them, there is scarcely anything about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer.
It was a moment of joyous excitement, which no words can describe. In a letter to a friend, written soon after reaching New York. I said I felt as one might be supposed to feel, on escaping from a den of hungry lions. But, in a moment like that, sensations are too intense and too rapid for words. Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be described, but joy and gladness, like the rainbow of promise, defy alike the pen and pencil.
For ten or fifteen years I had been dragging a heavy chain, with a huge block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I had felt myself doomed to drag this chain and this block through life. All efforts, before, to separate myself from the hateful encumbrance, had only seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it.
Baffled and discouraged at times, I had asked myself the question, May not this, after all, be God's work? May He not, for wise ends, have doomed me to this lot? A contest had been going on in my mind for years, between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible errors of superstition; between the wisdom of manly courage, and the foolish weakness of timidity.
The contest was now ended; the chain was severed; God and right stood vindicated. I was A FREEMAN, and the voice of peace and joy thrilled my heart.
Free and joyous, however, as I was, joy was not the only sensation I experienced. It was like the quick blaze, beautiful at the first, but which subsiding, leaves the building charred and desolate. I was soon taught that I was still in an enemy's land. A sense of loneliness and insecurity oppressed me sadly.
I had <263 MEET WITH A FUGITIVE SLAVE>been but a few hours in New York, before I was met in the streets by a fugitive slave, well known to me, and the information I got from him respecting New York, did nothing to lessen my apprehension of danger. The fugitive in question was "Allender's Jake," in Baltimore; but, said he, I am "WILLIAM DIXON," in New York! I knew Jake well, and knew when Tolly Allender and Mr. Price (for the latter employed Master Hugh as his foreman, in his shipyard on Fell's Point) made an attempt to recapture Jake, and failed. Jake told me all about his circumstances, and how narrowly he escaped being taken back to slavery; that the city was now full of southerners, returning from the springs; that the black people in New York were not to be trusted; that there were hired men on the lookout for fugitives from slavery, and who, for a few dollars, would betray me into the hands of the slave-catchers; that I must trust no man with my secret; that I must not think of going either on the wharves to work, or to a boarding-house to board; and, worse still, this same Jake told me it was not in his power to help me.
He seemed, even while cautioning me, to be fearing lest, after all, I might be a party to a second attempt to recapture him.
Under the inspiration of this thought, I must suppose it was, he gave signs of a wish to get rid of me, and soon left me his whitewash brush in hand--as he said, for his work. He was soon lost to sight among the throng, and I was alone again, an easy prey to the kidnappers, if any should happen to be on my track.
