David West

I came from King and Queen county, Va., where I left a wife and four children. I was treated well—I paid my master two hundred dollars a year, and acted honorably all through the time I remained there. My master died, and I heard that I was to be sold, which would separate me from my family, and knowing no law which would defend me, I concluded to come away.

When my master died, I made his coffin and buried him. I am a carpenter, and well known in King and Queen county. I did not believe that slavery was right, but as I was born there, and had a family there, I tried to content myself to remain, and should probably have done so, but for the dread of being sold south. My mistress told me that I was not to be sold, and my master’s brother told me the same,—but I had seen him carry away my father, sister, and aunt to Alabama to be sold: my father being then sixty years old. When he returned, I asked him “what he had done with my father?”—all he said was, “Sir?” and that was all the answer he made me. Of course I could not believe him, when he said I was not to be sold: for he had fooled my father with the story that he was going to remove to Alabama himself. Gentlemen in the neighborhood told me I was going to be sold.

When I left, I told my purpose to no one. I studied a plan by which I might get away, and I succeeded.

I am now in Canada doing well at my trade, and I expect to do yet better. My only trouble is about my wife and family. I never should have come away but for being forced away.

A Baptist preacher told me once, when I was working for him, that there was no country in the world equal to Virginia. My answer was, “Yes, I believe it is the greatest country in the world: for one third of the people are doing nothing, and the other two thirds are working to support them.” He then spoke of something else.

My family are perpetually on my mind. I should be perfectly happy if I could have my wife and the four children. If my wife had known it, and had said half a word, I should have stayed to the moment of being sold.

I look upon slavery as a disgrace, and as breaking the laws of God: that no man can keep the laws of God and hold to slavery. I believe my own master was as good a man as there is in the whole South: I loved him in health, and I loved him in death,—but I can read the Bible, and I do not see any thing there by which he could be justified in holding slaves: and I know not where he has gone to.

It is a common remark that they have a right to hold the slaves, because they were given them by their fathers,—justifying their own sins by those of their fathers: would it excuse them for stealing or drinking, to say that their fathers were thieves and drunkards?

I was taught, secretly, to read, but never taught to write: I feel that I have been wrongfully deprived of the knowledge of writing. I could have done better for myself every way had I known how to write.

I was led to religious knowledge, by hearing old colored people talk, and by the preaching I heard. I was constrained to seek repentance, was converted, and joined the Pokaroan church, [Baptist]. I used to partake of the sacrament after the whites had had their communion. We could have no night meetings without fear of the patrols, who would lash those they could catch during or after service.

I wish well to the members of that church; and, although my name is now taken off the records with scorn, I have done nothing wrong, nor have I offended my Maker by the course I have pursued. I hope to meet them in heaven with the hundred and forty and four thousand whom John saw in Mount Sion (or the New Jerusalem), where we all shall meet and no more to part.

We shall never be able to meet in that city holding that which does not belong to us.

I want to ask the southern people if their own consciences do not tell them it is wrong to hold slaves, knowing that it is against the laws of God?

I have seen the slaves to be underfed and half clothed, and the masters would say they were well taken care of. I have known this of three or four counties. I have known a slave to be sick, and to be neglected until he was about to die, and then a great stir would be made,—and if he died, they would say, “The best nigger is dead,” although when living, it would seem as if he could do nothing to please them. I have seen separations of families every year for many years.

The slaveholders so far as I know are generally mean people. I have been cheated by a rich slaveholder out of half a bushel of corn in buying half a barrel. I knew it and he knew it; but he knew I would not dare say any thing about it,—the law was such that he could have me whipped, if I were to contradict him. He was worth ten thousand dollars, and I was not worth ten cents: I believe that trade was just as much right as it is to hold slaves. I told some white people of this before I left, and they cried out “shame!”

I believe that if the slaveholders were to say, “Here, boys, you are free; you may go to work for me at so much a day,”—if ‘t was done all over the South, there would be no trouble: ‘t would be no great credit to set them free, for ‘t is no more than their duty.

I have known slaves to be hungry, but when their master asked them if they had enough, they would, through fear, say “Yes.” So if asked if they wish to be free, they will say “No.” I knew a case where there was a division of between fifty and sixty slaves among heirs, one of whom intended to set free her part. So wishing to consult them, she asked of such and such ones, if they would like to be free, and they all said “No:”—for if they had said yes, and had then fallen to the other heirs, they would be sold,—and so they said “No,” against their own consciences. But there will be a time when all will be judged. The Lord, He made us out of the dust of the earth, and He is the greatest Judge of the earth, yet even He does not compel us to serve Him: but among men, who are so frail, the stronger takes the weaker by force, and binds them slaves, and murders them.

These views I have not got since I left the South; they were in me all the time I was there. I have often tried to love my minister and brethren in Pokaroan church, but when I heard them say, “Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you,” and saw what they were doing to their own brethren in Christ, I thought with the disciples, “Who, then, can be saved?” I never knew in all my living in the South, a colored man to separate a family of whites by sale or in any way, but have often known this to be done by the whites.