H. C. BRUCE.
Twenty-nine Years a Slave.
Twenty-nine Years a Free Man.
RECOLLECTIONS OF
H. C. BRUCE.
YORK, PA.
P. ANSTADT & SONS,
1895.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by
H. C. BRUCE,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
The author offers to the public this little book, containing hispersonal recollections of slavery, with the modest hope that it will befound to present an impartial and unprejudiced view of that system. Hisexperience taught him that all masters were not cruel, and that allslaves were not maltreated. There were brutal masters and there weremean, trifling lazy slaves. While some masters cruelly whipped, half fedand overworked their slaves, there were many others who provided fortheir slaves with fatherly care, saw that they were well fed andclothed, and would neither whip them themselves, nor permit others to doso.
Having reached the age of twenty-nine before he could call himself afree man, and having been peculiarly fortunate in all his surroundingsduring the period of his slavery, the author considers himself competentto deal with all concerned, fairly and without prejudice, and he willfeel more than repaid for his labor, if he can throw even some littlenew light upon this much mooted question. He believes that we are toofar removed now from the heart burnings and cruelties of that system ofslavery, horrible as it was, and too far removed from that bloody strifethat destroyed the system, root and branch, to let our accounts of itnow be colored by its memories. Freedom has been sweet indeed to theex-bondman. It has been one glorious harvest of good things, and hefervently prays for grace to forget the past and for strength to goforward to resolutely meet the future.
The author early became impressed with the belief, which has sincesettled into deep conviction, that just as the whites were divided intotwo great classes, so the slaves were divided. There are certaincharacteristics of good blood, that manifest themselves in the honor andability and other virtues of their possessors, and these virtues couldbe seen as often exemplified beneath black skins as beneath white ones.There were those slaves who would have suffered death rather than submit{iv}to dishonor; who, though they knew they suffered a great wrong in theirenslavement, gave their best services to their masters, realizing,philosophically, that the wisest course was to make the best of theirunfortunate situation. They