Fifty Years in Chains; or, The Life of an American Slave By Charles Ball A DocSouth Books Edition The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library Chapel Hill 2 A DocSouth Books Edition, 2012 ISBN 978-1-4696-0784-9 (pbk.: alk. paper) Published by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library CB #3900 Davis Library Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890 http://library.unc.edu Documenting the American South http://docsouth.unc.edu [email protected] Distributed by The University of North Carolina Press 116 South Boundary Street Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808 1-800-848-6224 http://www.uncpress.unc.edu This book was digitally printed. About This Edition This edition is made available under the imprimatur of DocSouth Books, a cooperative endeavor between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library and the University of North Carolina Press. Titles in DocSouth Books are drawn from the Library’s “Documenting the American South” (DocSouth) digital publishing program, online at http://docsouth.unc.edu. These print and downloadable e-book editions have been prepared from the DocSouth electronic editions. Both DocSouth and DocSouth Books present the transcribed content of historic books as they were originally published. Grammar, punctuation, spelling, and typographical errors are therefore preserved from the origi- nal editions. DocSouth Books are not intended to be facsimile editions, however. Details of typography and page layout in the original works have not been preserved in the transcription. DocSouth Books editions incorporate two pagination schemas. First, standard page numbers reflecting the pagination of this edition appear at the top of each page for easy reference. Second, page numbers in brack- ets within the text (e.g., “[Page 9]”) refer to the pagination of the original publication; online versions of the DocSouth works use this same original pagination. Page numbers shown in tables of contents and book indexes, when present, refer to the original works’ printed page numbers and there- fore correspond to the page numbers in brackets. Summary Charles Ball was born on a tobacco plantation in Calvert County, Mary- land. The exact date of his birth is not certain, but most scholars agree that it was some time in 1781. When he was four, his mother and siblings were sold to another plantation and Ball never saw them again. Ball remained in Maryland and married Judah, a slave on a neighboring plantation, but they were separated when he was sold to a slave trader from Georgia. Ball was bound with 51 other slaves in neck irons, handcuffs and chains and forced to walk for over a month from Maryland to Columbia, South Caro- lina. There, he was sold to a cotton plantation owner, and later worked for the owner’s youngest daughter in Georgia. When his owner died in 1809, Ball found himself at the mercy of the owner’s sons, whose cruelty was un- bearable. That year he escaped from slavery and during the span of a year walked from Georgia to Maryland. In Maryland, he returned to his wife and children, and at the advice of his wife’s owners he hired himself out for wages. Although Ball was a fugi- tive slave, he escaped notice for a long time and managed to save enough money to buy a farm near Baltimore. Ball’s first wife died in 1816 and two years later he married again. His life as a self- proclaimed freedman, how- ever, was precarious, and in 1830 he was captured and returned to slavery. He escaped again, hiding on a ship to Philadelphia and then returning to Baltimore. In his absence, his wife and children, who were legally freed slaves, had been sold into slavery. After learning of his family’s fate, Ball returned to Pennsylvania to minimize the chance of being recaptured. Ball’s Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball was published in 1836 and written with the help of Isaac Fischer. Fischer declares in his preface that he has edited the oral narra- tive Ball had dictated to him to omit any beliefs or feelings Ball may have expressed about slavery. This declaration of presumably significant editing has led scholars to debate the authenticity of Ball’s narrative, but most agree that the narrative represents a true story. The popularity of Ball’s story is well-documented. Slave narrative scholar William Andrews notes: “Ball’s 5 narrative was reprinted often in the decades following its initial publica- tion; it directly influenced the manner and matter of later fugitive slave narratives.” Fifty Years In Chains; or, The Life of an American Slave, (1859) was an abridged and unauthorized reprinted of the earlier Slavery in the United States. In the narratives, Ball describes his experiences as a slave, including the uncertainty of slave life and the ways in which the slaves are forced to suffer harsh and inhumane conditions. In particular, he recounts the qualities of his various masters, and the ways in which his fortune de- pended on their temperament. Works Consulted Andrews, William L., To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986; Garraty, John A. and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Ripley, C. Peter, et al., eds., The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. III: The United States, 1830-1846, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. Harris Henderson 6 [Title Page Image] FIFTY YEARS IN CHAINS; OR, THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN SLAVE. “My God! Can such things be! Hast Thou not said that whatsoe’er is done Unto thy weakest and thy humblest one, Is even done to Thee?”— WHITTIER. NEW-YORK H. DAYTON, PUBLISHER. 36 HOWARD STREET. INDIANAPOLIS, IND.: - ASHER & COMPANY. 1859. 8 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858, by H. DAYTON, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. THE story which follows is true in every particular Responsible citizens of a neighboring State can vouch for the reality of the narrative. The language of the slave has not at all times been strictly adhered to, as a half century of bondage unfitted him for literary work The subject of the story is still a slave by the laws of this country, and it would not be wise to reveal his name.