"The Slave Mother"

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"Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seem'd as if a burden'd heart
Was breaking in despair."​

Armstead Kentuck was three years old when he went up for sale. He, along with his mother were sold for $1,950. At least they would be together . . until the sale was cancelled. Now they are on the auction block for a second time. As one witness described the event the poor little boy Armstead began to cry "most pitifullly" while he hid his face under his mothers skirt.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born in Baltimore in 1825 the daughter of free African-American parents. By age twenty, she was a published poet. In 1853 she was an active member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and was a prominent and respected speaker on the subject of abolition. In 1854 she wrote her poem "The Slave Mother" putting in rhyme the horror when children went on the auction block. When she asks "Heard you that shriek?" one can only imagine Armstead and his mother as they approach their fate.

"Saw you those hands so sadly clasped—
The bowed and feeble head—
The shuddering of that fragile form—
That look of grief and dread?

Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain."​

Slave #60 approachs the block. His name is John Louis who is twenty-four years of age and his nineteen year old wife is #61 (although slaves never were allowed to be legally married), but it's #62 the eyes are drawn to. He is described as a "plump, little boy of 3 years". During the auction little Collar's mother presses "her little boy to her bosom; she casts her tearful eyes toward heaven" {3}.

"She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kyrtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide."​

Little Collar and his family has been sold for $3,050.00, but for now they are still together. It was not the case with Martha King.

Harriet Davis was born in Virginia, and Harriet's mother had been captured in Africa as a young girl. She had been lured on the boat with the promise of a pretty handkerchief and when she walked aboard she was trapped as the ship sailed away and she never saw her family members again. Harriet gave birth to Martha and Martha never knew who her father was.

"His love has been a joyous light
That o'er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life's desert wild.

His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart,
Their lives a streamlet blent in one—
Oh, Father! must they part?"

In the 1930's as a much older woman, Martha gives an interview to tell her chilling story.
In her own words she relates:​

"When I was about five years old they brought my grandmother, my mother and my two aunts and two uncles to Tumkaloosa from Fayettesville. Alabama. We crossed a big river on a ferry boat. They put us on the "block" and sold us. I can remember it well. A white man "cried" me off just like I was a animal or varmint or something. He said. "Here's a little n*****, who will give me a bid on her. She will make a good house gal someday." Old man Davis give his $300.00 for me. I don't know whether I was afraid or not; I don't think I cared just so I had something to eat. I was allus hungry. Miss Davis' grandmother and one of my aunts and uncles. Old man Davis bought the rest of us. Uncle Henry looked after me when he could. I could see my mother once in awhile but not often.

I had a purty easy time. I didn't have to work very hard 'till I was about ten years old. I started working in the field and I had to work in the weaving room too. We made all our own clothes. I spun and wove cotton and wool. Old Master bought our shoes. We made fancy cloth. We could stripe the cloth or check it or leave it plain. We also move coverlids and jeans to make mens suits out of. I could still do that if I had to." {4}

Four year old Charles Ball never forgot the day he was separated from his other.
As he would later describe it:​

"His new owner dressed him, but Ball vividly recalled that his 'poor mother', who knew it might be the last time she saw her son, 'ran after' him. She took him 'down from the horse' and held him tight, then 'wept loudly and bitterly' over him. When it was time for him to leave, she 'walked along the road beside the horse', pleading with the owner not to take her son.

After being physically separated, his mother was whipped, and Ball remembered 'the cries of my poor parent' as they became less audible the further he traveled. Despite the fading sounds of her cries, and as 'young as I was', Ball explained, 'the horrors of that day sank deeply into my heart, and even at this time though half a century has elapsed, the terrors of the scene return with painful vividness'." {1}

Sources
1. https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2018/06/breaking-up-families-of-color-an-american-tradition-as-old-as-the-slave-trade.html
2. https://shenandoahliterary.org/blog/2016/02/the-slave-mother-a-tale-of-ohio-by-frances-ellen-watkins-harper/#:~:text
3. "The Slave Auction" by Dr. John Theophilus Kramer published 1859
4. https://accessgenealogy.com/alabama/slave-narrative-of-martha-king.ht

 

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