Page:The black man - his antecedents, his genius, and his achievements (IA blackmanantecede00browrich).pdf/250

 in the place; and the latter, associating with other servants, and occasionally meeting travellers from the free states, obtained much valuable information respecting the north and Canada, and his owner was not a little surprised one day when a complaint came to him that his servant had been furnishing passes for slaves in the neighborhood to visit their wives. Sella was called before the master, and threatened with severe punishment if he ever wrote another pass for a slave. About two years after this, the owner partially lost his sight, and the servant became first the reader of the morning paper, and subsequently the amanuensis in the transaction of all the master's business. An intimacy sprang up between the two, and it being for the white man's interest that his chattel should read and write correctly, the latter became in fact the pupil of the former, which accelerated his education. At the age of eighteen his owner died, and Sella was left free. But the influence of the heirs at law was sufficient to set the will aside, and the free young man, together with other slaves of the estate, was sold on the auction block, and the new owner took Sella to Mobile, where he resided till 1852, when he was again sold and taken to New Orleans. Here the subject of our sketch hired his own time, became a dealer in fruit and oysters, and succeeded in saving a little money for himself, with which he made his escape on a Mississippi steamer in December, 1855, and arrived at Chicago on the 6th of January, 1856. The great hope of his younger days had been attained, and he was now free. But Mr. Martin had seen too much of slavery to feel satisfied with merely getting his own freedom, and he therefore began the inquiry to see what he could do