Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad/Chapter IX
CHAPTER IX.
It often became necessary to obtain, on a sudden emergency, a considerable amount of funds in order to place large parties of fugitives beyond the power of the slave hunters. For that purpose certain individuals called on ladies and gentlemen, and stated the case without ever giving such information as could possibly betray the fugitives into any danger, and at such times men of all parties were solicited for aid. In pursuit of the aforesaid object, in the city of Albany, one of our solicitors called on an old gentleman who had long been, and was still, a leading man in the Democratic party. After hearing the statement, he said, “You want help to send these runaways to Canada, do you? I shall give nothing for any such purpose! Don’t you see that it is against the law? Talk about human rights, human sympathies, self-evident principles, ‘liberty and the pursuit of happiness;’ such talk may have been very well once, but it is different now. Why, here is your Whig President, (Fillmore,) and that party, you know, claims to embody all the decency and all the religion in the nation—he would be down upon me with his fines and imprisonment, his marshals and his army. It is right to hold slaves, and wrong for them to run away. Here are ten dollars to help pay their passage back; give it to them, and advise them to go home and ask pardon for going off without leave, and if any more of them come along and need help to go home, don’t fail to call on me—I like to help on a good cause.”
That was many years ago, and many a ten-dollar bill did he give for the same object and with similar advice, still holding his standing good as a Democrat, until the Democratic party tired on the old flag at Sumter, since which time he has not been counted worthy of a name in the party; for copperheads are not made of such men as he—indeed, I do not know a man from whom we ever received aid and comfort in this enterprise, who is now in that party.
There are now living within twenty miles of Fredonia village, several men who were active agents on the U. G. R. R., and voted the Democratic ticket up to 1860, and others who had believed themselves Democrats “dyed in the wool,” but had been converted from five to twenty years earlier just by the simple process of “taking stock” in this institution. I think I promised you some time ago that I would relate how a Democrat was converted in connection with the active business of the U. G. R. R., and as I once heard him relate the incident to a crowd of copperheads who had surrounded him in the town of Randolph, Cattaraugus Co., about the time that McClellan was nominated at Chicago, I will give it in his own language as near as I can recollect. The gentleman, Captain Chapman, I allude to, was a successful cultivator and dealer in fruits and garden vegetables, and being in Randolph one day with a load of fine fruit, his wagon was surrounded by a crowd of people of all classes, when a coppery old fellow remarked to the crowd that the fruit had a “niggery smell,” and he didn’t want any of it. Another man who had known him in his boyhood said, “Capt. C., you were brought up a Democrat of the straitest sect, and now you go for nigger equality, nigger voting, and marrying niggers, of course that will come next. I would like to know liow a son of your father was ever turned over in this way.”
“Well,” said the Captain, “I can tell you how I was converted, though I don't understand how your talk about ‘niggers’ as you call them, has anything to do with the flavor of my fruit, or with this question of maintaining our government when rebels are trying to destroy it; but seeing you want to know what’s the matter with me, I’ll tell you. It is true, as you say, my father was a Democrat, and perhaps he supposed that to hate a negro and to be a Democrat was all one thing,—can’t say as to that, never heard him say much on the subject, though I remember a feeling of that sort seemed to be common. When I was a boy I wanted to go sailing on the lake, so father put me in care of Captain Perkins, and I became a sailor. By the time I was twentytwo years of age I was in command of a vessel on Lake Erie. We stopped at Cleveland one night, and the wind being high, we anchored in the harbor, but about daybreak the wind fell away and we started for Buffalo. When about three miles out, a boat with four men in it put off from the shore and came towards us with a white flag flying, so we hove to until the boat came alongside. Two of the men were merchants in Cleveland, with whom I was well acquainted—had done business with them the day before ; one of them threw on board a purse, containing about $15 in silver, and said, ‘Land these two men in Canada, take your pay out of that and give them what is left.’ The two men came aboard and the boat returned.
“The men thrown upon my hands were very black, coarse in feature and build, stupid in expression, and apparently incapable of any mental excitement except fear. They were frightened out of their wits if they ever had any, and started involuntarily at every noise, but sat upon the deck and soon fell asleep. An hour or two after I saw a steamer coming out of Cleveland harbor, and when she had passed nearly a mile away, she turned and came toward us. I took my glass and looked at her, and saw a man with a glass scanning my vessel. After coming near enough to see distinctly all that was on my deck, they bore away on their course to Buffalo. I knew, of course, that these men were fugitive slaves, though they were the first that I had ever seen. I had heard it remarked that it wras only the smartest niggers that ever got away, and thought I, if these are the smartest, what stupid animals the masses of the slaves must be; although I have since seen many of them escaping by the U. G. R. R., I still think these appeared the most stupid and degraded specimens I have ever seen. They would not talk, and seemed incapable of giving an intelligible account of their escape, or from whence they came, except that they had lived somewhere in Virginia on a tobacco plantation, were sold and driven with a large coffle in chains to the Ohio River, and shipped for ‘down river.’ They left the boat and got ashore, were taken in charge by the agents of the XL G. R. R., though at the time I had never heard of that institution, and my vessel was pressed into the service, and constituted an ‘extension of the track’ without my knowing it; as to their progress after they landed in Ohio, I learned that afterwards. While they were on my vessel I felt little interest in them, and had no idea that the love of liberty as a part of man’s nature was in the least possible degree felt or understood by them. Before entering Buffalo harbor, I ran in near the Canada shore, manned a boat and landed them on the beach. I then handed to them the purse and all its contents, and told them that they were free. They said, ‘Is this Canada?’ I said, ‘Yes, there are no slaves in this country;’ then I witnessed a scene I shall never forget. They seemed to be transformed; a new light shone in their eyes, their tongues were loosed, they laughed and cried, prayed and sang praises, fell upon the ground and kissed it over and over, embraced a tree and kissed it, hugged and kissed each other, crying, ‘Bress de Lord! Oh! I’se free before I die!’
“I wish,” said the Captain, “you could all have seen it; there is no use trying to describe it, I can’t do justice to the subject. I left them and returned to my vessel, and while returning I thought to myself, ‘My God! is it possible that human beings are kept in such a condition that they are made perfectly happy by being landed and left alone in a strange land with no human beings or habitation in sight, with the prospect of never seeing a friend or relative, without a single bright spot or prospect in the future, except the single idea—Liberty? And who is to blame?’ Before I stepped upon my deck I had determined to never again be identified with any party that sustained the system of slavery, and, gentlemen, it is my opinion that there is not a copperhead rebel in this crowd who is as capable of appreciating the true principles of human liberty, and of enjoying the practical application of such principles as were those poor stupid slaves. Why, just look at the facts. The former masters of those slaves are your masters. They call you ‘mudsills,’ subsisting by labor; the best of you, if known to live by your own labor, even if it were only selling goods or teaching school, would not be allowed to sit at their tables, and if you travel into their territory you must padlock your jaws. And what is the result? Have you accepted emancipation when offered? for in the emancipation of the negro your own is secured. Do you accept it and rejoice in it? Not a bit of it; you would reject it if it were not forced upon you. While you sneer at and slander the negro for accepting his freedom, you go down in the dirt and lick the heels of the men who trample on you, and tell you that labor degrades you, and then straighten yourselves up and judge of the right of a class of men to vote by the color of their skin, as if that were the only thing in which your claim to the right of suffrage would bear competition with theirs.”
The Captain had been interrupted two or three times, and a large crowd had gathered around him. He was about offering his fruit for sale again, when some one asked, “How about the man on the steamboat?” “Well,” said he, “before I was fairly fastened to the wharf two men came on board and asked to be shown ‘where I had put those colored men ?’ ‘What colored men?’ I replied. ‘The niggers,’ said one, ‘that you brought from Cleveland.’ ‘There were no such men on this vessel when I left Cleveland,’ I replied. ‘I saw them,’ he said, ‘from the steamer when we passed you, and I shall search the vessel.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘search it if you want to, you will find no such men on this craft.’
“However, I thought, as a little excitement would be rather pleasant just then, I would tell him all about it, withholding the account of how they came on board, and I did tell him, not forgetting their conduct when they found they were free. The man turned pale, trembled, grated his teeth, walked up and down the deck, and finally having recovered his voice,—he was so mad at first he could not speak—he shook his fist at me, keeping, however, at safe distance, and said, with horrid oaths, ‘You shall suffer for this!’ I said, ‘Sir, it is not proper to speak in that manner to a Captain on his own ship.’ He appeared to understand me, and left the vessel. I never heard from him again ”