APPENDIX.
The following statement is from Amy Post, a member of the Society of Friends in the State of New York, well known and highly respected by friends of the poor and the oppressed. As has been already stated, in the preceding pages, the author of this volume spent some time under her
hospitable roof.
L.M.C.
“The author of this book is my highly-esteemed friend. If its readers knew her as I know
her, they could not fail to be deeply interested in her story. She was a beloved inmate of our
family nearly the whole of the year 1849. She was introduced to us by her affectionate and
conscientious brother, who had previously related to us some of the almost incredible
events in his sister’s life. I immediately became much interested in Linda; for her
appearance was prepossessing, and her deportment indicated remarkable delicacy of
feeling and purity of thought.
“As we became acquainted, she related to me, from time to time some of the incidents in
her bitter experiences as a slave-woman. Though impelled by a natural craving for human
sympathy, she passed through a baptism of suffering, even in recounting her trials to me, in
private confidential conversations. The burden of these memories lay heavily upon her
spirit—naturally virtuous and refined. I repeatedly urged her to consent to the publication
of her narrative; for I felt that it would arouse people to a more earnest work for the
disinthralment of millions still remaining in that soul-crushing condition, which was so
unendurable to her. But her sensitive spirit shrank from publicity. She said, “You know a
woman can whisper her cruel wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can
record them for the world to read.” Even in talking with me, she wept so much, and
seemed to suffer such mental agony, that I felt her story was too sacred to be drawn from
her by inquisitive questions, and I left her free to tell as much, or as little, as she chose.
Still, I urged upon her the duty of publishing her experience, for the sake of the good it
might do; and, at last, she undertook the task.
“Having been a slave so large a portion of her life, she is unlearned; she is obliged to
earn her living by her own labor, and she has worked untiringly to procure education for
her children; several times she has been obliged to leave her employments, in order to fly
from the man-hunters and woman-hunters of our land; but she pressed through all these
obstacles and overcame them. After the labors of the day were over, she traced secretly and
wearily, by the midnight lamp, a truthful record of her eventful life.
“This Empire State is a shabby place of refuge for the oppressed; but here, through
anxiety, turmoil, and despair, the freedom of Linda and her children was finally secured, by
the exertions of a generous friend. She was grateful for the boon; but the idea of having
been bought was always galling to a spirit that could never acknowledge itself to be a
chattel. She wrote to us thus, soon after the event: ‘I thank you for your kind expressions in
regard to my freedom; but the freedom I had before the money was paid was dearer to me.
God gave me that freedom; but man put God’s image in the scales with the paltry sum of
three hundred dollars. I served for my liberty as faithfully as Jacob served for Rachel. At
the end, he had large possessions; but I was robbed of my victory; I was obliged to resign
my crown, to rid myself of a tyrant.’
“Her story, as written by herself, cannot fail to interest the reader. It is a sad illustration
of the condition of this country, which boasts of its civilization, while it sanctions laws and
customs which make the experiences of the present more strange than any fictions of the
past.
Amy Post.
“Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 30th, 1859.”
The following testimonial is from a man who is now a highly respectable
colored citizen of Boston.
L.M.C.
“This narrative contains some incidents so extraordinary, that, doubtless, many persons,
under whose eyes it may chance to fall, will be ready to believe that it is colored highly, to
serve a special purpose. But, however it may be regarded by the incredulous, I know that it
is full of living truths. I have been well acquainted with the author from my boyhood. The
circumstances recounted in her history are perfectly familiar to me. I knew of her treatment
from her master; of the imprisonment of her children; of their sale and redemption; of her
seven years’ concealment; and of her subsequent escape to the North. I am now a resident
of Boston, and am a living witness to the truth of this interesting narrative.
George W. Lowther.”
