Many of my friends have urged me to give a short sketch of my varied life that I have consented. I have taken up my pen and laid it down a hundred times, with the task unfulfilled – the duty unaccomplished. Nervous sensations, a chill of the heart, have restrained my pen – yet the record must be made. I would that others with colder blood and less personal interest could make this disclosure but it belongs to my history.
Did you ever have a wound – a deep, almost mortal wound – whereby your life was threatened? Which, after years of nursing and skilful surgical treatment had healed, and then rudely torn open? This is my situation. I am going to tear open, with a rude hand, a deep wound that time and kind friends have not erased.
To those of you who have never suffered as I have, may you accept with interest and sympathy the life and characters here portrayed, and the lessons which should follow them. If there is want of unity or coherence in this story, be charitable and attribute it to lack of knowledge and experience in literary acquirements. I leave you to the perusal of my tale.
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I was born in one of the southern counties of Kentucky. I lived on a farm with my first master – Ted Nielsen, and his family, consisting of his sister, two daughters and two sons and a passel of slaves. My mother was a very bright mulatto woman, and my father, I suppose, was a white man. I know nothing of him, for with the most unpaternal feeling, he deserted me. A consequence of this union was my very fair complexion.
My skin was no perceptible shade darker than that of my masters and mistresses. My eyes were hazel, while a profusion of golden hair, straight and soft, fell in abundance over my neck and shoulders. I was often mistaken for a white child and the exclamations of “What a beautiful child!” while stroking my hair and cheeks was quite common. Owing to this personal beauty, I was the pet of my master’s sister – Mrs. Summers. Mrs. Summers was a childless widow who lavished upon me all the attention and fondness of a warm and loving heart.
My mother, Kendra, commonly called Aunt Kay, was possessed of an unyielding ambition. She had, by the hardest of means, endeavoured to acquire the rudiments of an education; but all that she had succeeded in obtaining was knowledge of the alphabet, and the spelling of some words. Being very imitative, she shunned the ordinary negroes’ pronunciation, and adopted the mode of speech used by the higher classes of whites. She was very delighted when Mrs. Summers or Miss Joyce (as we called her) began to instruct me in the elements of the English Language.
I inherited my mother’s thirst for knowledge, and, by intense study, proved to be an apt pupil. Three months from the day Miss Joyce began teaching me the alphabet, I was reading fluently from the “First Reader”. I often heard Miss Joyce relate this as quite an educational marvel.
There were so many slaves upon the farm, particularly young ones, that I was regarded as a surplus. Consequently, I was spared from all work. I sat in Miss Joyce’s room, with book in hand, not paying attention to anything else. If ever I faltered in my attention to my studies, my mother, with her wild ambition, was there to rally me, and even offer the tempting bribe of cakes and other treats.
Mr. Nielsen frequently said, “Joyce, you will spoil that girl, teaching her so much.” Miss Joyce would always reply, “She is too pretty for a slave.” Thus smoothly passed the early part of my life, until an event occurred which was the cause of a change in my whole life.
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Mr. Nielsen became suddenly and dangerously ill. My lessons were suspended, for Miss Joyce’s services were needed in the sick chamber. I used to slyly steal to the open door of Mr. Nielsen’s room, and peep in at the sombre group collected there, weeping around his curtained bed. Then there came a time when loud screams and frightful wailings came from the room. There were shrieks that rang in my ear, shrieks that seemed to mince souls and tear heart-strings.
There came then, a long, narrow, black box with brass tacks, in which Mr. Nielsen was carefully laid, with his pale hands crossed upon his chest. One by one, the slaves were called in to take a last look of him who had been, to them, a kind master. I went in to take my look. His wan, ghastly face, those sunken eyes and pinched features, with the white winding sheet, and the dismal coffin, struck a new and wild terror. For weeks after, this “vision of death” haunted my mind fearfully.
I soon after resumed my studies under Miss Joyce’s tuition. Love of study taught me seclusive habits; I read long and late; and the desire of a finished education became the passion of my life. I had a very good knowledge of the fundamentals, had bestowed some attention upon grammar, and eagerly read every book that fell in my way.
I grew up in the same house, scarcely knowing my young masters and mistresses. I was termed in the family as “the child”, as I was not black; and, being a slave, my masters and mistresses would not admit that I was white. So I reached the age of thirteen, still called a “child”, and actually one in all life’s experiences, though pretty well advanced in education. Alas! Those days were poor preparation for the life that was to come after!
Miss Joyce, though a warm-hearted woman, was a violent advocate of slavery. I am puzzled how to reconcile this with her otherwise ‘Christian’ character. She professed to love me dearly, taught me so much, and expressed it as her opinion that I was too pretty and white to be a slave. Yet, if any one had spoken of giving me freedom, she would have condemned it as domestic heresy. If I had belonged to her, I have no doubt that my life would have been a happy one. However, a different lot was assigned to me...