Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/11

 

SEPARATED FROM MY MOTHER.

story is a true one, and I shall tell it in a simple style. It will be merely a recital of my life as a slave in the Southern States of the Union — a description of negro slavery in the "model Republic." My grandfather was brought from Africa and sold as a slave in Calvert county, in Maryland. I never understood the name of the ship in which he was imported, nor the name of the planter who bought him on his arrival, but at the time I knew him he was a slave in a family called Maud, who resided near Leonardtown. My father was a slave in a family named Hauty, living near the same place. My mother was the slave of a tobacco planter, who died when