The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive/Chapter 15
Some persons perhaps may think that having fallen into the hands of such a master as major Thornton, I had now nothing to do, but to eat, to work and to be happy.
Had I been a horse or an ox, there would be good ground for this idea; but unfortunately, I was a man; and the animal appetites are by no means, the only motive of human action, nor the sole sources of human happiness or misery.
It is certainly true that several of major Thornton's servants, born perhaps with but little sensibility, and brutalized by a life of servitude, seemed very well content with their lot. "This was the sort of servant, which major "Thornton especially admired. In this particular, he did not differ much from his neighbors. "The more stupid a field hand is, the more he is esteemed; and a slave who shows any signs of capacity, is generally set down as certain to be a vogue and a rascal.
I soon discovered my master's fondness for stupid fellows; and I took care to play the fool to his entire satisfaction. In a short time, I made myself quite a favorite; and my master having taken a fancy to me, I was more indulged perhaps, than any servant on the place. But this could not make me happy.
Human happiness — with some very limited exceptions — is never in fruition, but always in prospect and pursuit. It is not this, that, or the other situation that can give happiness. Riches, power or glory, are nothing when possessed. It is the pleasure of the pursuit and the struggle, it is the very labor of their attainment, in which consists the happiness they bring.
Those moralists who have composed so many homilies upon the duty of contentment, betray an extreme ignorance of human nature. No situation, however splendid, in which one is compelled to remain fixed and stationary, can long afford pleasure; and on the other hand, no condition, however destitute or degraded, out of which one has a fair propect, or any thing like a sufficient hope of rising, can justly be considered as utterly miserable. This is the constitution of the human mind; and in it, we find the explanation of a thousand things, which without this key to their meaning, seem full of mystery and contradiction.
Though all men have not the same objects of pursuit, all are impelled and sustained by the same hope of success. Nothing can satisfy the lofty desires of one man, but influence, fame, or power, the myrtle wreath or laurel crown; another aims no higher than to rise from abject poverty to a little competency, or, if his ambition is of another sort, to be the chief person in his native village, or the oracle of a country neighborhood. How different are these aims! — and yet, the impulse that prompts them, is the same. It is the desire' of social superiority. He whom circumstances permit to yield to this impulse of his nature, and to pursue successfully or not, it matters little — but to pursue with some tolerable prospect of success, the objects which have captivated his fancy, may be regarded as having all the chance for happiness, which the lot of humanity allows; while he, whom fate, or fortune, or whatever malignant cause, compels to suppress and forego the instinctive impulses and wishes of his heart — whatever in other respects may be his situation — is a wretch condemned to sorrow, and deserving pity. To the one, toil is itself a pleasure. He is a hunter whom the sight of his game fills with delight, and makes insensible to fatigue. Desire sustains him, and Hope cheers him on. These are delights the other never knows; for him, life has lost its relish; rest is irksome to him, and la bor is intolerable. This is no digression. He who has taken the pains to read the preceding paragraph, will be able to understand, how it happened, that even with such a master as major Thornton, I was neither happy nor content.
It is true I was well fed, well clothed, and not severely worked; and in these particulars, — as my master was fond of boasting, and as I have since found to be the case, — my situation was far superior to that of very many freemen. But I lacked one thing which every freeman has; and that one want was enough to make me miserable. I wanted liberty; the liberty of laboring for myself, not for a master; of pursuing my own happiness, instead of toiling at his pleasure, and for his gain. This liberty can lighten the hardest lot. He knows but little of human nature, who has not discovered, that to all who rise one step above the brutes, it is far pleasanter to starve and freeze after their own fashion, than to be fed and clothed and worked upon compulsion.
I was wretched, — for I had no object of hope or rational desire. I was a slave; and the laws held out no prospect of emancipation. All the efforts in the world could not better my condition; all the efforts in the world could not prevent me from falling — perhaps tomorrow — into the hands of another master, as cruel and unreasonable as evil passions and hard-heartedness could make him. The future offered only the chance of evils. I might starve with cold and hunger as well as another; I might perish by gun-shot wounds, or the torture of the lash; or be hung up, perhaps, without judge or jury. But of bettering my condition, I had neither chance, nor hopes. I was a prisoner for life; at the present moment, not suffering for food or clothing, but without the slightest prospect of liberation; and likely enough at any moment, to change my keeper, and under the discipline of a new jailer, to feel the pinchings of cold and hunger, and to tremble daily beneath the whip. I was cut off and excluded from all those hopes and wishes, which are the chief impulses of human action. I could not aim to become the master of a little cottage, which, however humble, I might call my own; to be the lord of one poor acre, which however small or barren, might still be mine I could not marry — alas, poor Cassy! — and become the father of a family, with the fond hope, that when age should overtake me, I might still find pleasure and support, in the kindness of children and the sympathy of a wife. My children might be snatched from the arms of their mother, and sold to the slave-trader; the mother might be sent to keep them company, — and I be left old, desolate, uncomforted. Motives such as these, motives which strengthen the freeman's arm and cheer his heart, were unfelt by me. I labored; — but it was only because I feared the lash. The want of willingness unnerved me, and every stroke cost a new effort.
It is even true, that major Thornton's humanity, or to speak more correctly, his sense of his own interest, while it preserved his servants from the miseries of hunger and nakedness, at the same time, exposed those among them, whom slavery and ignorance had not completely brutalized, to other and more excruciating miseries. Had we been but half fed and half clothed, like the servants on several of the neighboring plantations, we should, like them, have enjoyed the excitement of plunder. We should have found some exercise for our ingenuity, and some object about which to interest ourselves, in plans and stratagems for eking out our short allowance by the aid of theft.
As it was, stealing was but little practised at Oakland. The inducement was too small, and the risk too great, — for detection was certain to result in being sold. Money was no object to us; we could only spend it on food and clothes, and of these we had enough already. Whiskey was the only luxury we wanted; and we could make enough to purchase that, without the necessity of theft. Mr Thornton allowed each of us a little piece of ground. That was customary; — but what was quite contrary to custom, he allowed us time to cultivate it. He endeavored to stimulate our industry by the promise of buying all we could produce, not at a mere nominal price, as was the fashion on other plantations, but at its-full value.
I am sorry to say it, but it is not the less true, that major Thornton's people, like all slaves who have the means and the opportunity, were generally drunkards. Our master took good care that whiskey did not interfere with our work. To be drunk before the task was finished was a high misdemeanor. But after the day's labor was over, we were at liberty to drink as much as we pleased; — provided always, that it did not prevent us from turning out at daylight the next morning. Sunday was generally a grand Saturnalia.
Hitherto, I had scarcely been in the habit of drinking. But now I began to be eager for anything which promised to sustain my sinking spirits, and to excite my stagnant soul. I soon found in whiskey, a something that seemed to answer the purpose. In that elevation of heart which drunkenness inspires, that forgetfulness of the past and the present, that momentary halo with which it crowns the future, I found a delight which I hastened to repeat, and knew not how to forego. Reality was to me a blank, dark and dreary. Action was forbidden; desire was chained; and hope shut out. I was obliged to find relief in dreams and illusions. Drunkenness, which degrades the freeman to a level with the brutes, raises, or seems to raise the slave, to the dignity of a man. It soon became my only pleasure, and I indulged it to excess. Every day, as soon as my task was finished, I hastened to shut myself up with my bottle. I drank in solitude, — for much as I loved the excitement of drunkenness, I could not forget its beastliness and insanity, and I hated to expose my folly to the sight of my fellow servants. But my precautions were not always successful. In the phrensy of excitement I sometimes forgot all my sober precautions; undid the bolts I had carefully fastened; and sought the company I most desired to shun,
One Sunday, I had been drinking, till I was no longer the master of my own actions. I had left my house, and gone to seek some boon-companions with whom to protract the revel and increase its zest. But I was unable to distinguish one object from another, and after straggling off for some distance, I sunk down, almost insensible, upon the carriage way, which led towards major Thornton's house.
I had grown a little more sober, and was endeavoring to rally my thoughts and to recollect where I was, and what had brought me there, when I saw my master riding up the road, with two other gentlemen. They were all on back; and as drunk as I was, I saw at a glance, that my master's two companions, were very much in the same predicament. The manner in which they reeled backward and forward in their saddles was truly laughable; and I expected every moment to see them fall. I made these observations as I lay upon the road, without once thinking where I was, or recollecting the danger I was in, of being ridden over. They had come quite near before they noticed me. By that time I was sitting up, and my master's drunken companions took it into their heads, to jump their horses over me. Major Thornton did his best to prevent them; one, he succeeded in stopping; but the other evaded his attempt to seize the bridle, swore that the sport was too pretty to be lost, put spurs to his horse, and brought him up to the leap.:
But the horse had no fancy for this sort of sport: When he saw me before him, he started back, and his drunken rider came tumbling to the ground. The others dismounted and went to his assistance. Before he was well upon his feet, he begged major Thornton's attention, and forthwith commenced a very grave lecture on the indecency of allowing servants to get drunk, and to lie about the plantation, — particularly across the roads, frightening gentlemen's horses, and putting the necks of their riders into jeopardy. "Especially you, major Thornton, who pretend to be a pattern for all of us. Yes sir, yes, if you did as you ought to do, every time one of the rascal fellows had the insolence to get drunk, you would tie him up and give him forty lashes. That's the way I do, on my plantation."
My master was so very fond of setting forth his method of farming, and his plan of plantation-discipline, that he did not always stop to consider whether his auditors were drunk or sober. The present opportunity was too good to be lost, and rubbing his hands together, he answered, with a_half-smile, and a very sagacious look, — "But, my dear sir, you must know it is a part of my plan to let my servants drink as much as they please, so that it does not interfere with their tasks. Poor fellows! it serves to keep them out of mischief, and soon makes them so stupid they are the easiest creatures in the world to manage." Here he paused a minute, and assuming the look, which a man pats on, who thinks he is going to urge an unanswerable argument — "Besides," he added, "if one of these drinking fellows happens to take a huff and runs away, the very first thing he does, is to get drunk, so that you seldom have any difficulty in catching him."
Though I was still too much under the influence of whiskey, to be capable of much muscular motion, I had so far recovered my senses as to comprehend perfectly, all that my master was saying; and no sooner had he finished, than, drunk as I was, I made a resolution to drink no more. I was not yet so far lost, as to be able to endure the idea, of being myself the instrument of my own degradation. My resolution was well kept; for I have seldom tasted spirits since that day.