All the money is in the trunk. You must stick to me, ’Siah.”
Josiah said it was the answer from God.
They took twelve days to reach the Riley landing, for the water was low, particularly in the Ohio River, and navigation difficult. Before they were many hours away from New Orleans, the fever had subsided, but young Riley had been near death and lay weakly on his bunk, depending on Josiah for every attention. He could neither speak nor move, and his eyes followed the slave in entreaty for a teaspoonful of gruel or something to moisten his throat. Josiah nursed and tended him, saving his life, and when they at last reached the landing, Riley was carried to the Big House by a relay of slaves who took him on a litter over the five miles which separated it from the river’s edge.
There was great surprise among the members of the family when they first saw Josiah, until they learned what his burden was, and then all attention was for the young man. A few first words of gratitude were all he ever received from them. “If I had sold him I would have died,” said young Amos. Only the market value of their slave was of any consideration to them. The act which he had performed served to raise his value in their esteem, and Josiah thought that his master now looked at him with a glance that seemed even more greedy than before. He felt sure that another attempt would be made to sell him before long.
/ 7 /
The ruling force of Josiah Henson’s life was the religion which he had learned, and he was convinced, according to the tenets which he professed, that a slave owed a duty to his master. In a moment of crisis such as had occurred during his trip down the river it was this acceptance of religious belief which had held his hand. He was gifted enough with introspection to be driven to the most intense self-examination in every circumstance of his life, and very often the conflict which was thereby exposed would allow of no solution. From his earliest years he had felt that he must justify himself in his own eyes, as in the case of a chicken which he “stole” from Isaac Riley. Now he needed justification to “steal” himself and his family. He must argue that the Riley brothers had conspired against his rights, as indeed they and the whole system had done, but further than the offense against his natural rights, they had sought to cheat him in the bargain which he had made with them for his liberty. This last infamy was what had decided him to take his wife and children and escape forever.
“If Isaac had only been honest enough to adhere to his bargain, I would adhere to mine and pay him all I had promised,” Henson later wrote. “But his attempt to kidnap me again after having pocketed three-fourths of my market value, in my opinion absolved me from all obligations to pay him any more or to continue in a position which exposed me to his machinations.”
On his trip through Ohio Josiah had heard of the Underground Railway. News of the Underground was whispered about everywhere by this time, but where was it? Where did it run? Could you hear it coming, see it? What was a train? The untutored slaves, and many whites too, were puzzled by the legend and the name. Around many a plantation fire it was pictured by hushed voices as an immense carriage traveling at great speed at night through a dark tunnel, on out of sight, and into freedom.
Lord, lead us out of Egypt’s land. But where is thy train? If only one knew where to catch it, where to find it and go on to blessed freedom. One thought he had seen it rushing through the darkest forest in the night, while another thought that he had heard its lonely wail as it passed in the distance with its cargo of happy but frightened passengers. Yet no one really knew.
The Underground was running few “trains,” and those mostly from the northern slave states at this time. The highly organized “excursions,” the crowded schedules, did not get under way until the late 1840s, and above all after the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. By that time “passage” cost a great deal of money, and quite extravagant ruses and extraordinary disguises were adopted to spirit slaves away to freedom. Yet, in 1830 there were, if one only knew where to knock and what to say, a few “stations” and “station masters,” even in the South. An “agent,” at the risk of his life, could send a fugitive slave on his way with a bold “conductor” who would take him all the way to the Canadian border.
Josiah had heard of the Underground in Ohio, but he did not know where it ran nor how. He knew only that it went to Canada, sure refuge from pursuit, and now he, too, determined to go there. It was a fearsome journey to undertake, and few men born to slavery would have dared to undertake it even had they suffered the same provocation as Josiah. He knew no “agent,” had met no “shepherd” such as Harriet Tubman, who, in later years, would arrive mysteriously on a plantation and entice slaves away to freedom. His escape was to be entirely of his own doing. He was not even alone; he had his wife and four children to consider.
When he told Charlotte of his plan, she was overwhelmed with terror. She knew little or nothing beyond the warmth of her own hearthstone, and her imagination peopled the world outside the plantation with fantastic horrors.
“We shall die in the wilderness, ’Siah. They’ll hunt us with the hounds and bring us back and whip us to death. You can’t, ’Siah. I won’t go.”
He tried to persuade her that the chance for freedom was worth the risk, but she clung to her home and her children.
“I’ll go alone. I’ll leave you now and go alone. If we stay, Master Riley will sell me soon and you’ll be alone anyway. I told you what I saw at Vicksburg. Before that, I’ll go alone. No, I’ll take the children too, all but the youngest.”
The next day, when he left for the fields, she suddenly called him back and said that she would go, for she feared that he might go even then and not come back.
The greatest difficulty was presented by the two youngest children, who were two and three years old. They would have to be carried, and so, night after night, Josiah went into training. He had his wife make a sort of knapsack of tow cloth, with straps to go round his shoulders. The children could be slung in this. Every night he walked the cabin floor until dawn, while the children laughed and crowed at the fun until they fell asleep. Finally he found that he could manage them for long stretches without tiring. Now it was time to decide on a night to depart.
They chose a Saturday night because Sunday was a holiday, and on the following two days Josiah was supposed to oversee a job that was to be done on a farm some miles from the Big House. In this way, they would not be missed for some time, and it would give them a start on their pursuers.
Little Tom, his eldest child, was away from the cabin, for the family kept him in the Big House to work in the kitchen, and permission would have to be obtained for him to come and visit his mother. Toward sundown Josiah went up to report on the week’s work, and after talking with the master for some time, started to turn away. “Oh, Massa Amos, I ’most forgot. Tom’s mother wants to know if you won’t let him come down a few days; she wants to mend his clothes, and fix him up a little.”
“Yes, boy, yes. He can go.”
“Thank ’ee, Mass’ Amos. Good night, good night.”
He could not prevent himself from throwing a good deal of emphasis into that last “good night.” What a long good night to Massa that would be.
It was about the middle of September, and by nine o’clock it was dark enough to start. No moon lighted their way down to the landing where another slave was waiting to row them across the river in a little skiff. They sat still as death, crouched together, and rowed into midstream, where the oarsman stopped.
“It’ll be the end of me if this is ever found out; but you won’t be brought back alive, ’Sie, will you?”
“Not if I can help it,” Josiah replied, thinking of the pistols and knife
