Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/289

Rh fortune — had lately married in a wealthy family, in this part of the country, and was a great planter.

Two days after this, we reached Savannah, where my master sold his cotton, and purchased a wagon load of sugar, molasses, coffee, shoes, dry goods, and such articles as we stood in need of at home; and on the next day after I entered the city, I again left it, and directed my course up the country. In Savannah I saw many black men who were slaves, and who yet acted as freemen so far that they went out to work, where and with whom they pleased, received their own wages, and provided their own subsistence; but were obliged to pay a certain sum at the end of each week to their masters. One of these men told me that he paid six dollars on every Saturday evening to his master; and yet he was comfortably dressed, and appeared to live well. Savannah was a very busy place, and I saw vast quantities of cotton piled up on the wharves, but the appearance of the town itself was not much in favor of the people who lived in it.

On my way home I traveled for several days, by a road different from that which we had pursued in coming down; and at the distance of fifty or sixty miles from Savannah, I passed by the largest plantation that I had ever seen. I think I saw at least a thousand acres of cotton in one field, which was all as level as a bowling-green. There were, as I was told, three