Toronto
Charles Peyton Lucas
My name in slavery was Peyton Lucas; I changed my name in running, to Charles Bentley.
I was raised in Leesburg, Loudon county, Va. My master never sent me to school, nor gave me any instruction from the Bible, excepting one passage of Scripture which he used to quote to me,—”He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” He was a Baptist Minister—and after he had quoted the text, he would take me to the barn-yard and give me a practical explanation with raw hides. My mistress used to beat me over the head with a dairy key about as big as a child’s fist.
I was kept mostly at the quarters until twelve or thirteen, wearing nothing in the summer but a coarse crocus shirt. Many a time have I taken it by the two ends, and pulled it round a post to break down the sticks. When I was taken to the house, my mistress used to find fault with me before him. “Oh, I can’t stand this!” Then he would give me a kick or two in the house, then take me to the barn-yard, and finish it off with the cowskin. Both before and after, he would reason with me,—”now, you know better than to aggravate your mistress as you do, for you ‘ve often heard me read, “He that knoweth,” etc. I used to hear him preach. While the whipping was going on and he was quoting Scripture, I thought of another way,—I yelled until the people and children climbed up and looked over the fence or peeped through, to see what was going on: so he gave it up. Then he gave me a note to carry to the overseer, and he followed after me. I went a short way, delivered the note and was off before he got there. He appeared to feel ashamed that I had circumvented him. Thus things went on for a year or two. My mother and myself came by the mistress,—my master thought more of his slaves than of her’s.
One day my brother was playing with one of the boys of his side of the house. There was a dog there, which, when you said, “Help, Bull,” would take hold of anybody. My brother said “Help, Bull,” and the dog nipped the other boy. On the next morning, Saturday, the overseer, a good Baptist brother, told my master of the fray, whereupon he dismounted, (he was just starting for a place where he was to preach next day,) tied up the boy, and laid twenty-five lashes on his bare back with a cowskin: then he turned to the overseer,—my mother was there and heard him,—”Brother—, take your satisfaction out of the dog, (meaning my brother,) and then let him down.” Upon this, he mounted his horse and went off a preaching. At night, my brother went to the stable, took the halter from a very valuable horse, broke or divided it, leaving the pieces on the floor, and broke the doors, to make it appear that the horse had got loose; then he took the horse and ran away. Being a wagoner, and well acquainted, he was accosted by flour merchants on his way, about bringing flour on the morrow. He rode that horse forty miles before daylight. He got off clear. My master recovered his horse in Baltimore, after a great deal of trouble. He then stamped his foot in anger, and told us all to go. He had, some little time before this, sold my other brother, my sister, and her two children into Georgia.
At fifteen, I was hired out to the blacksmithing business. I served at it five years, and was then hired out as a journeyman, my Reverend master taking my wages. I worked out five or six years, and was well fed, well clothed, and well used. I enjoyed life then very well, and had many privileges: nor did I run away for either fear of my master, or of the man I lived with, nor in consequence of ill treatment.
My sister worked in the house where I lived. My master had come into the shop where I worked, bringing a stranger with him, and they had talked with my employer. On inquiry of her, she told me that the stranger had dined there, and that while she was clearing away the table, she heard master say, “I won’t take less than fifteen hundred dollars; he is a first-rate blacksmith.” We knew it meant me, as I was the only blacksmith on the place. This was in 1841.
In one week’s time I started for the North with two companions; but it was cock-crowing before we reached the Potomac; so we went on a hill, and hid until the next (Sunday) night. Then we came down, and tied our provisions into bundles on our backs, and started for Potomac river,—whether to wade it, swim it, or get drowned, we knew not. We waded and swam, changing our ground as the water deepened. At last we reached the opposite bank in Maryland: we merely stopped to pour the water out of our boots, and then travelled on all wet, until morning: then we hid in the bushes. We travelled by night and concealed ourselves by day, for ten days and nights, suffering greatly from hunger and from rain, without shelter. One day in September, we sat on a mountain, exposed to a hot, broiling sun, and without food or drink. We could hear people at their work about us, but we did not dare ask for aid. For three days, we had neither food nor drink, excepting green corn. We sucked the juice for drink, and the corn itself was our only food. The effect of this was to weaken us very much.
One night we came to a farmer’s spring-house,—I broke the lock and got a good pan of milk, but before I could find any thing else, the dogs began to bark, so that we had to hurry off. We quaffed the milk with a good relish and it did us a deal of service. We drank at times muddy water from horse tracks: on one occasion, we were run very severely by dogs and men, but we got away from them. One morning between two and four o’clock, we came to a white man tending a lime-kiln,—he was asleep. We knew nothing of the way; so we concluded to awaken him, and ask the way, and if he tried to stop us, or have us caught, that we would kill him and throw him into the kiln. We awoke him and told him that our harvesting was done, and we were hunting for work, as we had two days to work in. He did not believe it,—said we were runaways. I took out my pistol, cocked and capped it, and the others produced, one a bayonet, and the other a bowie knife. The man approached us, saying still we were runaways. Had he offered to touch us we would have killed him, but he proved to be the best friend we had ever had. He told us our way, and regretted that he had no food. Said he, “If you travel on, by day-light you will cross Mason and Dixon’s line, and get among the Dutch. Keep away from the big road, walk near it, but not in it,—walk in the daytime, but keep in the woods.” We followed his directions, and at ten o’clock, next morning, we reached a Dutchman’s house. The man was out,—but the woman and girls set the table. We ate all they had in the house,—I ate till I was ashamed. The good woman told us to avoid Shippensburg, as six had been carried back from there just before. She told us, if anybody questioned us, to say that we were going to Horse Shoe Bottom camp meeting on the Susquehanna. We did accordingly, and soon struck the track of the underground railroad, which we followed into the northern free States.
At—, I went to work on a building. One day a druggist came to me, and said an advertisement describing me was in the tavern,—”tawny colored man, tall, spare, and of a pleasing countenance when spoken to, and he works at blacksmithing. No scars recollected, except one on his neck. Any person who will return him to me, or lodge him in jail, so that I can get him, shall have a reward of five hundred dollars.” My friends advised me to remove further. I worked in Geneva, N. Y., until the passage of the fugitive slave law, when my friends advised me to go to Canada, with which advice I complied, at a great sacrifice, on account of some property which I was trying to buy.
I feel that I am out of the lion’s paw, and I feel that THERE IS NO CURSE ON GOD’S EARTH, EQUAL TO SLAVERY.
I think that emancipation ought to be so arranged, as that the sick and infirm should be taken care of by those who have had the benefit of their labor. Provision for education ought also to be made. It would take a generation to accomplish this: but the practical mode of emancipating ought to be planned by the South.