Introduction and Context
The way they divide their slaves is this: they write the names of different slaves on a small piece of paper, and put it into a box, and let them all draw. I think that Mr. Durham drew my mother, and Mr. Fowler drew me, so we were separated a considerable distance, I cannot say how far. My resembling my father so very much, and being whiter than the other slaves, caused me to be soon sold to what they call a negro trader who took me to the southern states of America, several hundred miles from my mother. As well as I can recollect, I was then about six years old. - Moses Roper, A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery
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Moses Roper was born in 1815, to a white father and a mixed race slave. When he was about six years old, Roper was separated from his mother. In his narrative, he described that the slaves drew lots to determine how slaves were divided. When he was six years old, he drew a different slave owner than his mother and additionally suspected that the separation was caused by his physical resemblance to his father.
Roper was bought by John Gooch, a cotton planter in Kershaw County, South Carolina. As a teenager, harsh treatment from Gooch's led Roper to begin a long series of unsuccessful escape attempts. The passage below describes some Roper's experience while living under John Gooch. Gooch eventually sold Roper and he experienced further harsh treatment from his masters in Florida and Georgia. It was from Florida that Moses Roper would begin his arduous and successful 350 mile escape by foot to freedom. When he reached Savannah, Georgia, he got a job and travelled around the country. |
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His journey led him to Boston, where he met William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists. In his time there, he became a part of the Anti-Slavery Society. Despite his new friends in Boston, Roper lived in fear of his recapture and decided to board a ship to live in England, where slavery had been abolished.
After the publishing of his slave narrative, he embarked on a career of antislavery activism and other odd jobs in Britain, Canada, and the United States. Though he had married a British woman and had four children, it seemed that his experience culminated in a decline in mental health later in life. He was found dying alone in a Boston train station in 1891. His story is a tragic one, but his bravery despite his fear gave a voice to the growing anti-slavery sentiment of the United States and England.
After the publishing of his slave narrative, he embarked on a career of antislavery activism and other odd jobs in Britain, Canada, and the United States. Though he had married a British woman and had four children, it seemed that his experience culminated in a decline in mental health later in life. He was found dying alone in a Boston train station in 1891. His story is a tragic one, but his bravery despite his fear gave a voice to the growing anti-slavery sentiment of the United States and England.
Document - A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery
Mr. Gooch had a female slave about eighteen years old, who also had been a domestic slave, and through not being able to fulfil her task, had run away; which slave he was at this time punishing for that offence. On the third day, he chained me to this female slave, with a large chain of 40 lbs. weight round the neck. It was most harrowing to my feelings thus to be chained to a young female slave, for whom I would rather have suffered a hundred lashes than she should have been thus treated. He kept me chained to her during the week, and repeatedly flogged us both while thus chained together, and forced us to keep up with the other slaves, although retarded by the heavy weight of the log-chain.
Here again words are insufficient to describe the misery which possessed both body and mind whilst under this treatment, and which was most dreadfully increased by the sympathy which I felt for my poor degraded fellow sufferer. On the Friday morning, I entreated my master to set me free from my chains, and promised him to do the task which was given me, and more if possible, if he would desist from flogging me. This he refused to do until Saturday night, when he did set me free. This must rather be ascribed to his own interest in preserving me from death, as it was very evident I could no longer have survived under such treatment.
After this, though still determined in my own mind to escape, I stayed with him several months, during which he frequently flogged me, but not so severely as before related. During this time I had opportunity for recovering my health, and using means to heal my wounds. My master's cruelty was not confined to me, it was his general conduct to all his slaves. I might relate many instances to substantiate this, but will confine myself to one or two. Mr. Gooch, it is proper to observe, was a member of a Baptist church, called Black Jack Meeting-House, in Cashaw county, which church I attended for several years, but was never inside. This is accounted for by the fact, that the coloured population are not permitted to mix with the white population. Mr. Gooch had a slave named Phil, who was a member of a Methodist church. This man was between seventy and eighty years of age; he was so feeble that he could not accomplish his tasks, for which his master used to chain him round the neck, and run him down a steep hill; this treatment he never relinquished to the time of his death. Another case was that of a slave named Peter, who, for not doing his task, he flogged nearly to death, and afterwards pulled out his pistol to shoot him, but his (Mr. Gooch's) daughter snatched the pistol from his hand. Another mode of punishment which this man adopted was, that of using iron horns, with bells, attached to the back of the slave's neck.
This instrument he used to prevent the negroes running away, being a very ponderous machine, seven feet in height, and the cross pieces being two feet four, and six feet in length. This custom is generally adopted among the slave-holders in South Carolina, and some other slave states. One morning, about an hour before daybreak, I was going on an errand for my master. Having proceeded about a quarter of a mile, I came up to a man named King, (Mr. Sumlin's overseer,) who had caught a young girl that had run away with the above-described machine on her. She had proceeded four miles from her station, with the intention of getting into the hands of a more humane master. She came up with this overseer nearly dead, and could get no farther. He immediately secured her, and took her back to her master, a Mr. Johnston.
Having been in the habit of going over many slave states with my master, I had good opportunities of witnessing the harsh treatment which was adopted by masters towards their slaves. As I have never read or heard of any thing connected with slavery so cruel as what I have myself witnessed, it will be well to mention a case or two.
(excerpt from pages 20-24)
Here again words are insufficient to describe the misery which possessed both body and mind whilst under this treatment, and which was most dreadfully increased by the sympathy which I felt for my poor degraded fellow sufferer. On the Friday morning, I entreated my master to set me free from my chains, and promised him to do the task which was given me, and more if possible, if he would desist from flogging me. This he refused to do until Saturday night, when he did set me free. This must rather be ascribed to his own interest in preserving me from death, as it was very evident I could no longer have survived under such treatment.
After this, though still determined in my own mind to escape, I stayed with him several months, during which he frequently flogged me, but not so severely as before related. During this time I had opportunity for recovering my health, and using means to heal my wounds. My master's cruelty was not confined to me, it was his general conduct to all his slaves. I might relate many instances to substantiate this, but will confine myself to one or two. Mr. Gooch, it is proper to observe, was a member of a Baptist church, called Black Jack Meeting-House, in Cashaw county, which church I attended for several years, but was never inside. This is accounted for by the fact, that the coloured population are not permitted to mix with the white population. Mr. Gooch had a slave named Phil, who was a member of a Methodist church. This man was between seventy and eighty years of age; he was so feeble that he could not accomplish his tasks, for which his master used to chain him round the neck, and run him down a steep hill; this treatment he never relinquished to the time of his death. Another case was that of a slave named Peter, who, for not doing his task, he flogged nearly to death, and afterwards pulled out his pistol to shoot him, but his (Mr. Gooch's) daughter snatched the pistol from his hand. Another mode of punishment which this man adopted was, that of using iron horns, with bells, attached to the back of the slave's neck.
This instrument he used to prevent the negroes running away, being a very ponderous machine, seven feet in height, and the cross pieces being two feet four, and six feet in length. This custom is generally adopted among the slave-holders in South Carolina, and some other slave states. One morning, about an hour before daybreak, I was going on an errand for my master. Having proceeded about a quarter of a mile, I came up to a man named King, (Mr. Sumlin's overseer,) who had caught a young girl that had run away with the above-described machine on her. She had proceeded four miles from her station, with the intention of getting into the hands of a more humane master. She came up with this overseer nearly dead, and could get no farther. He immediately secured her, and took her back to her master, a Mr. Johnston.
Having been in the habit of going over many slave states with my master, I had good opportunities of witnessing the harsh treatment which was adopted by masters towards their slaves. As I have never read or heard of any thing connected with slavery so cruel as what I have myself witnessed, it will be well to mention a case or two.
(excerpt from pages 20-24)
Questions for Discussion and Document Based Analysis
- Why was Mr. Gooch punishing the slave girl in the first paragraph of this passage? Cite the text.
- According to the text, how did Moses Roper become involved in the punishment?
- What were some of the examples that Moses Roper gives as evidence of Mr. Gooch's cruelty towards slaves. Cite two.
- Why do you think that Moses Roper called the pictured machine "ponderous"?
Sources Referenced
James Basker, ed, American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation, (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2012), 363.
Harry Thomas, Summary of Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery, Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina.
Harry Thomas, Summary of Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery, Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina.
