Arrival from the District of Columbia, 1858

Rebecca Jackson was a woman of about thirty-seven years of age, of a yellow color, and of bright intellect, prepossessing in her manners. She had pined in bondage in Georgetown under Mrs. Margaret Dick, a lady of wealth and far advanced in life, a firm believer in slavery and the Presbyterian Church, of which she was a member.

Rebecca had been her chief attendant, knew all her whims and ways to perfection. According to Rebecca’s idea, “she was a peevish, fretful, ill-natured, but kind-hearted creature.” Being very tired of her old mistress and heartily sick of bondage, and withal desiring to save her daughter, she ascertained the doings of the Underground Rail Road,—was told about Canada, &c. She therefore resolved to make a bold adventure. Mrs. Dick had resided a long time in Georgetown, but owned three large plantations in the country, over which she kept three overseers to look after the slaves. Rebecca had a free husband, but she was not free to serve him, as she had to be digging day and night for the “white people.” Robert, a son of the mistress lived with his mother. While Rebecca regarded him as “a man with a very evil disposition,” she nevertheless believed that he had “sense enough to see that the present generation of slaves would not bear so much as slaves had been made to bear the generation past.”