Elijah Jenkins

Last winter I came away from Norfolk, Va. I am thirty-six years of age.

My mistress, a young woman, died, and I fell to her mother, an old woman. Knowing that on her death I would have to be sold, I ran away, and did not meet with much difficulty in doing so.

We are told in Norfolk that they would set us free, but we could n’t get along without them to take care of us. But since I have got here, I find that colored people do get along without masters, better than those who are slaves.

I have no wish to go back, although I am sick. I intend to get work, as soon as I am well enough.

Since I grew up to be a man, slavery has never looked to me right. It seemed hard when I had earned any money to have to carry it to another man, when my wife needed it herself. I have left a wife and five small children. I had a good wife, and, if I could, would have her and the children here this minute. I never heard of a man running away from slavery to get rid of his wife.