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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 404 Print image (110K) |
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TASK FORCE TO STUDY THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF SLAVERY IN MARYLAND (Final Report) 1999/12/31 MdHR 991422 MdHR 991422, Image No: 404 Print image (110K) |
| Untitled 11/7/99 9:52 PM anti-slavery man, was fitting out a vessel for a whaling voyage, upon which there was a heavy job of calking and coppering to be done. I had some skill in both branches, and applied to Mr. French for work. He, generous man that he was, told me he wDuld erploy we, and I might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon reaching the float-stage, where others [sic] calkers were at wsrk, I was told that every white iren WDuld leave the ship, in her unfinished condition, if I struck a blow at rry trade upon her. This uncivil, inhurrian, and selfish treatment was not so shocking and scandalous in rry eyes at the time as it now appears to me. Slavery had inured me to hardships that made ordinary trouble sit lightly upon me. Could I have wDrked at ny trade I could have earned twD dollars a day, but as a camion laborer I received but one dollar. The difference was of great importance to me, but if I could not get two dollars, I was glad to get one; and so I went to wDrk for Mr. French as a cormon laborer. The consciousness that I v\as free—no longer a slave—kept me cheerful under this, and wany similar proscriptions, which I was destined to meet in Nav Bedford and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts. For instance, though colored children attended the schools, and were treated kindly ky their teachers, the New Bedford Lyceum refused, till several years after iry residence in that city, to allow any colored person to attend the lectures delivered in its hall. Not until such men as Charles Surmer, Theodore Barker, Ralph Vtoldo Qnerson, and Horace Mann refused to lecture in their course while there was such a restriction, was it abandoned. Beconing satisfied that I could not rely on ny trade in Nav Bedford to give me a living, I prepared rryself to do any kind of work that came to hand. I sawed wood, shoveled coal, dug cellars, moved rubbish from back yards, worked on the wharves, loaded and unloaded vessels, and scoured their cabins. I afterward got steady wDrk at the brass-foundry cwned ty Mr. Richmond. M/ duty here was to blow the bellcws, swing the crane, and erpty the flasks in which castings were made; and at times this was hot and heavy work. The articles produced here were mostly for ship wDrk, and in the busy season the foundry was in operation night and day. I have often worked two nights and every wsrking day of the week. M/ foreman, Mr. Cofcb, was a good man, and more than once protected me fron abuse that one or more of the hands was disposed to threw upon me. While in this situation I had little time for mental irrprovenent. Hard work, night ard day, over a furnace hot enough to keep the metal running like vgater, was more favorable to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post near my bellows, ard read while I was performing the up ard down motion of the heavy beam hy which the bellows was inflated and discharged. http://www.msstate.edu/Archives/History/USA/Afro-Amer/dugl210.txt Page 10 of 17 |