The author offers to the public this little book, containing his personal recollections of slavery, with the modest hope that it will be found to present an impartial and unprejudiced view of that system. His experience taught him that all masters were not cruel, and that all slaves were not maltreated. There were brutal masters and there were mean, trifling lazy slaves. While some masters cruelly whipped, half fed and overworked their slaves, there were many others who provided for their slaves

My mother often told me that I was born, March 3rd, of the year that Martin Van Buren was elected President of the United States, and I have therefore always regarded March 3rd, 1836, as the date of my birth. Those who are familiar with the customs that obtained at the South in the days of slavery, will readily understand why so few of the ex-slaves can give the correct date of their birth, for, being uneducated, they were unable to keep records themselves, and their masters, having no special i

Early in the spring of 1847, we reached the Perkinson farm in Virginia, where we found our master, whom we had not seen for nearly three years, and his son Willie, as he was then called, with hired slaves cultivating the old farm. My older brothers, James and Calvin, were at once hired to Mr. Hawkins, a brickmaker, at Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia. In as much as it was not the custom in that state to put slaves at work in the field before they had reached thirteen years of age, I, be

During the summer, in Virginia and other southern states, slaves when threatened or after punishment would escape to the woods or some other hiding place. They were then called runaways, or runaway Negroes, and when not caught would stay away from home until driven back by cold weather. Usually they would go to some other part of the state, where they were not so well known, and a few who had the moral courage would make their way to the North, and thus gain their freedom. But such cases were ra

I recently visited my old home in Prince Edward County, Virginia, after an absence of forty-four years, and was greatly surprised at the changes which had taken place during that period. I had much trouble to find farms which I had knowledge of, because I remembered them only by the names they were called by in 1849. The owners of them had died or moved away and others had acquired the lands, changing the names of them, while other farms had been deserted and allowed to grow up in forests, so th

It is encouraging to note the advancement made upon the stronghold of ignorance, superstition and voodooism by the Colored people, since their emancipation from the bonds of slavery, and especially is this so to those who remember the time when a large majority of them believed strongly in all kinds of superstition, voodooism, gophering, tricking and conjuring. I readily recall many instances wherein they were fleeced out of their little valuables or money by professional humbugs, known as conju

After having traveled over the rich lands of the Western Country, where fine crops were raised without much effort, and especially without any fertilizer, our master could not be content to remain in the poor, hilly, rocky state of Virginia, and determined to go to Mississippi, where his sister, Mrs. Susan Green then lived. So, about October, 1849, having sold the old farm he started with his slaves. On this occasion there was a separation of man and wife. Eight or ten months previously, my sist

From 1857 to 1862 times had become rather hard on slaves in Chariton County, Missouri, and were very little better for the free Negroes, for while they were called free, they really had but few more privileges than the slave. They had to choose guardians to transact all their business, even to writing them a pass to go from one township to another in the same county. They could not own real estate in their own right, except through their guardian, neither could they sell their crop without his w

Early in the Spring of 1856, our master had bought the Mann Plantation, located about seven miles east of Brunswick, and had made all arrangements to move to it, taking mother and four of her children, including myself. I did not want to go, but my desires in that respect were not considered, and I went without entering even a mild protest. Having lived in the city so long, I had lost all love for farm life. I had no knowledge of farming, especially that kind carried on in that part of the state

The national election of 1860, created more excitement probably than any that had preceded it, not excepting the “Hard Cider Campaign” of 1840, because greater questions and issues had to be met and settled. The North was opposed to the extension, of slavery, in fact there was a strong sentiment against its existence, while the South wanted more territory for its extension; then there was a spirit of disunion existing North and South. The abolitionists of the North had declared the National Cons

The enlistment of Colored men for the army commenced in Chariton County, Missouri, early in December, 1863, and any slave man who desired to be a soldier and fight for freedom, had an opportunity to do so. Certain men said to be recruiting officers from Iowa, came to Brunswick, to enlist Colored men for the United States Army, who were to be accredited not to Missouri, but to certain townships in Iowa, in order to avoid a draft there. I am unable to state the number of Colored men who enlisted i

On March 31, 1864, I landed at Leavenworth, Kansas, with my intended wife, without a change of clothing and with only five dollars in cash, two of which I gave Rev. John Turner, Pastor of the A. M. E. Church, who united us in marriage in his parlor that day. I knew a friend in that city, who came from Brunswick, Paul Jones, and upon inquiry soon found and secured room and board with him. The next day I was out hunting for work, which I obtained with a brick contractor, at two dollars and seventy

I have stated in a former chapter that the Colored people, notwithstanding the many adverse circumstances surrounding them, did succeed in obtaining a living and avoided becoming a great public charge, which fact, I think, will be universally admitted. But we can go further and show that they not only accomplished this, but other things, equally as great during the period from 1865 to the present. Many white people believed, when these people were freed that they were incapable of taking educati

The white people charge us with being imitators, incapable of originating anything in the domain of science, art or invention, and to a certain extent I am free to admit that the charge is true, and the reasons are easily explained. Being a new people, as it were, we had not attained to the point of originality, and situated in the midst of white people who had education, refinement of manners, money and the advantage it gives, we are compelled to imitate them. Besides, it was their advice to us

In a former chapter I have attempted to show the manner in which we have suffered in the past from the effects of an unwarranted prejudice against us, due not so much to our color as to our condition, and from the mistakes we have made in mapping out the course best suited for us to follow. We are a peculiar people, hitherto unknown to the laws of the United States. We have been made citizens by these laws, but are still regarded as a distinct people. In this chapter I shall try to give my views

In this closing chapter I shall try to give more of my personal history than has been stated in the preceding ones; for in those I spoke only of matters and things as I saw them, and incidentally mentioned the wrongs we suffered, the causes leading up to them and the remedy. But in this chapter, as stated above, I shall confine myself more closely to my own personal history and experience. By the winter of 1867-1868, I had, by hard work and strict economy, since the close of the war, saved up fi

Probably the most unique work of its kind will be Mr. H. C. Bruce’s book, “The New Man.” It is ostensibly the author’s autobiography, but he has made more of it than a simple narrative by interweaving with his own experience much of the history of the ante-bellum days and very many vivid descriptions of the habits and customs of the Old South. One of the most conspicuous features of this book is the entire absence of the passion usually displayed when former slaves refer to their past bondage. Y

We have been permitted to examine the manuscript of a projected book, the subject and the style of which will, we think, prove extremely interesting to the general public. It is the work of a Colored man, a resident of this city, and an employe of the Pension Office—Henry C. Bruce, a brother of Hon. B. K. Bruce, once United States Senator from Mississippi, and latterly Recorder of Deeds from the District of Columbia. It is the unpretentious story, simply and directly told, of a Colored man twent