Slave Narration

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Slave Narration

My name is Joe Eldridge I was born in South HamptonVirginia in 1810. The name Eldridge was my parents’ master surname given to me as a present to him for he reluctantly arranged for my mother’s medical care after a branding attempt left her disease infected while pregnant. I had two sisters and one brother whom I was separated from in 1819 during the second middle passage when they were taken to southwest part of Louisiana and Mississippi. The constitution had prevented importation of more slaves in 1808 and since regions required more laborers given, the cotton gin was at its peak having been discovered some three decades earlier, slave traders arrived looking for slaves to transport south. Additionally, the demand for laborers was decreasing in Virginia where my parents’ master retained me given I was the youngest among the slaves’ children apart from his surname. When I was fifteen and still serving as a domestic “house boy”, William Cassiono, was hired as the overall taskmaster.

Apart from being a Mullato, he wore a patch over his right eye. He was exceedingly cruel and biased given one of his first directives was removing all black slaves from domestic to farm labor while all the Mullatos were given lighter chores mostly domestic in nature. Stories about his background revealed he had been a slave trader along the Ohio River route but given the abolition policies between 1776 and 1804, the trade was made illegal. He is alleged to have carried on the trade illegally and escaped arrest by moving to Virginia. Amidst the gloom, several positive things arose from the cruel taskmaster’s arrival. First was Molly, the beautiful attractive Mullato purported as distantly related to William thus stationed as domestic laborer. She later became my wife having met as she was disinfecting my back after a gruesome whipping by William occasioned by my failure to meet the required quota two days consecutively. As slaves, we relied on fellow slaves for medical care informal at its best since most of knowledge was taught by our African grandparents. As a domestic worker, Molly was susceptible since William’s intent was aligned with the master’s son of making sexual advances towards domestic workers and at times rape. Unfortunately, for William it cost his right eye as one of the women slave resisted to her death.

The second positive injunctive from William’s arrival was I learnt of the abolition that had happened in the north. States north of Mason-Dixon demarcation had passed a resolution and outlawed slavery in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. I was aware my master considered any slave above 10 years mature to be separated from his/her family a fact proved by the master giving 10 and 11 year old slaves as presents in his daughter’s wedding. Consequently, I wanted to move north before our oldest son was nine. In 1831, I decided to take advantage of the emigration collection points set up by the American Colonization Society and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in Mary land where slaves were gathered and transported back to African colonies. This was my initial plan with Molly, to return to Africa but enroute in to Maryland in Washington we learnt of the emanticipation details where black schools had been set in Philadelphia around year 1822. We decided to stay in the Underground Railroad further than Maryland to Philadelphia. The one-month journey under an imperious abolitionist who claimed a personal association to Benjamin Franklin proved the most risky venture for my family along with hundreds of other slaves.

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