A song for McAfee (in his own words)

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any
other portion of the population of the earth could
have endured the privations, sufferings and horrors of
slavery, without having become more degraded in the
scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent.
Nothing has been left undone to cripple their
intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral
nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to
mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have sustained
the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under
which they have been groaning for centuries!

Mr. DOUGLASS has very properly chosen to write his own
Narrative, in his own style, and according to the best
of his ability, rather than to employ some one else.
It is, therefore, entirely his own production; and,
considering how long and dark was the career he had to
run as a slave,--how few have been his opportunities
to improve his mind since he broke his iron
fetters,--it is, in my judgment, highly creditable to
his head and heart. He who can peruse it without a
tearful eye, a heaving breast, an afflicted spirit,--
without
being filled with an unutterable abhorrence of slavery
and all its abettors, and animated with a
determination to seek the immediate overthrow of that
execrable system,--without trembling for the fate of
this country in the hands of a righteous God, who is
ever on the side of the oppressed, and whose arm is
not shortened that it cannot save,--must have a flinty
heart, and be qualified to act the part of a
trafficker "in slaves and the souls of men."

WM. LLOYD GARRISON
BOSTON, May 1, 1845.

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for
the monthly allowance for themselves and their
fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on
their way, they  would make the dense old woods, for
miles around, reverberate with their wild songs,
revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest
sadness. They would compose and sing as they went
along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought
that came up, came  out--if not in the word, in the
sound;--and as frequently in the one as in the other.
They  would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment
in the most rapturous tone, and the  most rapturous
sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all of their
songs they would  manage to weave something of the
Great House Farm. Especially would they do this,
     when leaving home. They would then sing most
exultingly the following words:-- 

      
              "I am going away to the Great House
Farm!

                        O, yea!  O, yea!  O!"

     This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which
to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which,
nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I
have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those
songs would do more to impress some minds with the
horrible character of slavery, than the reading of
whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. 

     I did not, when a slave, understand the deep
meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs.
I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw
nor heard as those without might see and hear. They
told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my
feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and
deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls
boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone
was a testimony  against slavery, and a prayer to God
for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild
notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with
ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in
tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those
songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing
these lines, an expression of feeling has already
found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my
first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing
character of slavery. I can never get rid of that  
conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my
hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my
brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed
with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go
to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on  allowance-day,
place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let
him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass
through the chambers of his soul,--and if he is not
thus
impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh
in his obdurate heart." 

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to
the north, to find persons who could
speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of
their contentment and happiness. It is
impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves
sing most when they are most
unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows
of his heart; and he is relieved by
them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its
tears. At least, such is my experience. I
have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to
express my happiness. Crying for joy,
and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while
in the jaws of slavery. The singing
of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as
appropriately considered as evidence of contentment
and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of
the one and of the other are prompted by the same
emotion.

Frederick Douglass

  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An
American
                               Slave  Chapter II




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