Chatham
Henry Crawhion
Was born in Louisville, Ky. As soon as able to work, I was hired out on a steamboat, and have mainly followed steamboating. Master died, and I remained with my mistress: young master being a sporting character, I had to be sold to pay his debts. Was sold to a trader in L., who took me to South Carolina, where I was employed three months to take care of race-horses. While there, I undertook to escape. I packed up in a carpet-bag, went to depot, and bought a ticket for Montgomery. A black man suspected me, because I had changed my trunk for the carpet-bag,—they came to the cars and took me out. They put me in chains, and kept me confined in the stable about two months; then I found a man who would buy me and take me to Louisville. I was put in the trader’s yard, but nobody wants to buy out of the yard, because they think they are put in for some fault. I was then taken down to Port Gibson, Miss., and traded off for fifteen mules. I stayed there three weeks, and was then taken to Baton Rouge, where I was set up for sale. Here I found a man who bought me to take to Louisville, where I had a wife, on the condition that I would find a man to buy me there. But I could not find a man who would buy me. I went to see my wife, and left for the North. I got here last night. I do n’t feel reconciled, on account of my wife and family. I am anxious now to get work. [He got employment in the course of the day.] I would prefer Louisville, if I could be free there. It is hard on me that I am obliged to live away from my family.
I cannot express what I think of slavery, I have so horrible ideas of it. I was taken to Savannah on my way to Charleston, and staid in Savannah four weeks. On the farms around Savannah, I saw them using bucking-paddles on the women. There were overseers and drivers behind the workmen on the farms. If a man lagged, he got a cut with a whip,—if any reply was made, he was bucked down. The bull whip is used freely all around there,—I have heard them crack like a pistol almost. In the city, a black man must get off the side-walk if he meets a white man, or stop on the curb-stone and raise his hat: if he meets a lady and gentleman he must step clean off the walk and raise his hat.
While in Charleston, S. C., I did not know the law of the country, and lit a cigar at my boarding-house and walked towards the stable smoking. I was taken up and put in the calaboose. Several others were put in for being out after nine at night. In the morning, they gave each of them ten lashes apiece, and let them go. I asked them why they did not whip me and let me go. They said I had committed a crime, and must go before a magistrate. I asked them “what crime?” “Smoking in the street.” I told them I was a stranger, and did not know the law. That made no odds, however; I was sentenced to nine and thirty lashes, and received them in the calaboose with a leather strap cut into three or four strips. White people smoke in the street, but ‘t is against the law for a colored man.