James
Pennington was
born a slave in Maryland. He worked as a stonemason and blacksmith
but when he was about twenty he escaped to Pennsylvania. He was looked
after by a Quaker who taught him to read
and write.
In 1828 Pennington moved to New York where he worked as a blacksmith.
He joined the campaign against slavery
and during this period became friends with William
Lloyd Garrison and Lewis Tappan.
He continued with his education and worked as a schoolteacher in Newtown,
Long Island, before becoming pastor of the Temple Street Congregational
Church.
In 1839 Pennington joined with Lewis Tappan
in organizing help for Joseph Cinque and
his fellow Africans who had been arrested as a result of the Amistad
Mutiny. Eventually the Supreme Court
ruled that the Africans had been kidnapped and had the right to use
violence to escape from captivity.
Pennington's The
Origin and History of the Coloured People was
published in 1841. Two years later he represented Connecticut
at the World's
Anti-Slavery Convention in London.
His
autobiography,
The Fugitive Blacksmith,
was serialized in the magazine, the Afro-American
in 1859. James
Pennington continued to work for black civil rights until his death
in 1870.
(1)
James Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1859)
My
master once owned a beautiful girl about twenty-four. She had been
raised in a family where her mother was a great favorite. She was
her mother's darling child. Her master was a lawyer of eminent abilities
and great fame, but owing to habits of intemperance, he failed in
business, and my master purchased this girl for a nurse. After he
had owned her about a year, one of his sons became attached to her,
for no honorable purposes; a fact which was not only well-known among
all the slaves, but which became a source of unhappiness to his mother
and sisters.
The result was, that poor
Rachel had to be sold to Georgia. Never shall I forget the heart-rending
scene, when one day one of
the men was ordered to get "the one-horse cart ready to go into
town"; Rachel, with her few articles of clothing, was placed
in it, and taken into the very town where her parents lived, and there
sold to the traders before their weeping eyes. That same son who had
degraded her, and who was the cause of her being sold, acted as salesman,
and bill-of-saleman. While this cruel business was being transacted,
my master stood aside, and the girl's father, a pious member and exhorter
in the Methodist Church, a venerable grey-headed man, with his hat
off, besought that he might be allowed to get someone in the place
to purchase his child. But no: my master was invincible. His reply
was, "She has offended in my family, and I can only restore confidence
by sending her out of hearing." After lying in prison a short
time, her new owner took her with others to the far South, where her
parents heard no more of her.
(2)
James Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1859)
We had an overseer named Blackstone;
he was an extremely cruel man to the working hands. He always carried
a long
hickory whip - a kind of pole. He kept three or four of these, in
order that he might not at any time be without one.
I once found one of these
hickories lying in the yard, and supposing that he had thrown it away,
I picked it up, and boy-like, was using it for a horse; he came along
from the field, and seeing me with it, fell upon me with the one he
then had in his hand, and flogged me most cruelly. From that, I lived
in constant dread of that man; and he would show how much he delighted
in cruelty by chasing me from my play with threats and imprecations.
I have lain for hours in a wood, or behind a fence, to hide from his
eye.
(3)
James Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1859)
The slaves are generally fed
upon salt pork, herrings, and Indian corn. The manner of dealing
it out to them is as follows: Each working man, on Monday morning,
goes to the cellar of the master where the provisions are kept, and
where the overseer takes his stand with someone to assist him, when
he, with a pair of steelyards weighs out to every man the amount of
three and a half pounds, to last him till the ensuing Monday - allowing
him just half a pound per day. Once in a few weeks there is a change
made, by which, instead of the three and a half pounds of pork, each
man receives twelve herrings, allowing two a day. The only bread kind
the slaves have is that made of Indian meal In some of the lower counties,
the masters usually give their slaves the corn in the ear; and they
have to grind it for themselves by night at hand mills. But my master
had a quantity sent to the grist mill at a time to be ground into
coarse meal, and kept it in a large
chest in his cellar, where the woman who cooked for the boys could
get it daily. This was baked in large loaves, called steel poun bread."
Sometimes as a change it was made into Johnny Cake," and then
at others into mush.
The slaves had no butter,
coffee, tea, or sugar; occasionally they were allowed milk, but not
statedly; the only exception to this statement was the "harvest
provisions." In harvest, when cutting the grain, which lasted
from two to three weeks in the heat of summer, they were allowed some
fresh meat, rice, sugar, and coffee; and also their allowance of whiskey.
At the beginning of winter,
each slave had one pair of coarse shoes and stockings, one pair of
pantaloons, and a jacket. At
the beginning of the summer, he had two pair of coarse linen pantaloons
and two shirts.
Once in a number of years,
each slave, or each man and his wife, had one coarse blanket and enough
coarse linen for a "bed-tick." He never had any bedstead
or other furniture kind. The men had no hats, waistcoats or handkerchiefs
given them, or the
women any bonnets. These they had to contrive for themselves.
Each laboring man had a small "patch" of ground allowed
him; from this he was expected to furnish himself and his boys hats,
&c. These patches they had to work by night; from these, also,
they had to raise their own provisions, as no potatoes, cabbage, &c.,
were allowed them from the plantation. Years ago the slaves were in
the habit of raising broom-corn, and making brooms to supply the market
in the towns; but now of later years great quantities of these and
other articles, such as scrubbing brushes, wooden trays, mats, baskets,
and straw hats, which the slaves made, are furnished by the shakers
and other small manufacturers, from the free states of the north.
(4)
James Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1859)
Neither my master or any other master,
within my acquaintance, made any provisions for the religious instruction
of his
slaves. They were not worked on the Sabbath. One of the "boys"
was required to stay at home and "feed," that is, take care
of the stock, every Sabbath; the rest went to see their friends. Those
men whose families were on other plantations usually spent the Sabbath
with them; some would lie about at home and rest themselves.
When it was pleasant weather
my master would ride "into town" to church, but I never
knew him to say a word to one of us about going to church, or about
our obligations to God, or a future state. But there were a number
of pious slaves in our neighborhood, and several of these my master
owned; one of these was an exhorter. He was not connected with a religious
body, but used to speak every Sabbath in some part of the neighborhood.
When slaves died, their remains were usually consigned to the grave
without any ceremony; but this old gentleman, wherever he heard of
a slave having been buried in that way, would send notice from plantation
to plantation, calling the slaves together at the grave on the Sabbath,
where he'd sing, pray, and exhort. I have known him to go ten or fifteen
miles voluntarily to attend these services. He could not read, and
I never heard him refer to any Scripture, and state and discourse
upon any fundamental doctrine of the gospel; but he knew a number
of "spiritual songs by heart," of these he would give two
lines at a time very exact, set and lead the tune himself; he would
pray with great fervor, and his exhortations were amongst the most
impressive I have heard.
(5)
James Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1859)
There is no one feature of slavery to
which the mind recurs with more gloomy impressions, than to its disastrous
influence upon the families of the masters, physically, pecuniarily,
and mentally.
It seems to destroy families
as by a powerful blight, large and opulent slaveholding families often
vanish like a group of
shadows at the third or fourth generation. This fact arrested my attention
some years before I escaped from slavery, and of course before I had
any enlightened views of the moral character of the system. As far
back as I can recollect, indeed, it was a remark among slaves, that
every generation of slaveholders are more and more inferior. There
were several large and powerful families in our county, including
that of my master, which affords to my mind a melancholy illustration
of this remark. One of the wealthiest slaveholders in the county,
was General R., a brother-in-law to my master. This man owned a large
and highly valuable tract of land, called R.'s Manor. I do not know
how many slaves he owned, but the number was large. He lived in a
splendid mansion, and drove his coach and four. He was for some years
a member of Congress. He had a numerous family of children.
The family showed no particular
signs of decay until he had married a second time, and had considerably
increased his number of children. It then became evident that his
older children were not educated for active business, and were only
destined to be a charge. Of sons (seven or eight), not one of them
reached the eminence once occupied by the father. The only one that
approached to it, was the
eldest, who became an officer in the navy, and obtained the doubtful
glory of being killed in the Mexican war.
General R. himself ran
through his vast estate, died intemperate, and left a widow and large
number of daughters, some minors, destitute, and none of his sons
fitted for any employment but in the army and navy.
(6)
James Pennington, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1859)
I
distinctly remember the two great difficulties that stood in the way
of my flight: I had a father and mother whom I dearly loved, I had
also six sisters and four brothers on the plantation. Will not the
whole family be sold off as a disaffected family, as is generally
the case when one of its members flies? But a still more trying question
was, how can I expect to succeed, I have no knowledge of distance
or direction - I know that Pennsylvania is a free state, but I know
not where its soil begins, or where that of Maryland ends? When I
considered the difficulties of the way - the reward that would be
offered - the human bloodhounds that would be set upon my track -
the weariness - the hunger - the gloomy thought, of not only losing
all one's friends in one day, but of having to seek and to make new
friends in a strange world. But, the man must act, or forever be a
slave.
(7)
James Pennington, letter
to parents (1844)
About
seventeen long years have now rolled away, since in
the
Providence of Almighty God, I left your embraces, and set out upon
a daring adventure in search of freedom. Since that time, I have felt
most severely the loss of the sun and moon and eleven stars from my
social sky. Many, many a thick cloud of anguish has pressed my brow
and sent deep down into my soul the bitter waters of sorrow in consequence.
And you have doubtless
had your troubles and anxious seasons also about your fugitive star.
I have
learned that some of you have been sold, and again taken back by Colonel
———. How many of you are living and
together, I cannot tell. My great grief is, lest you should have suffered
this or some additional punishment on account of my Exodus.
I indulge the hope that
it will afford you some consolation to know that your son and brother
is yet alive. That God has dealt wonderfully and kindly with me in
all my way. He has made me a Christian, and a Christian Minister,
and thus I have drawn my support and comfort from that blessed Saviour,
who came to preach good tidings unto the meek, to bind up the broken
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year of
the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that
mourn. To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might
be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he
might he glorified.
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