The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C.   By: Lunsford Lane (1803-)

Embracing an account of his early life, the redemption by purchase of himself and family from slavery, And his banishment from the place of his birth for the crime of wearing a colored skin.

Published By Himself.

Boston: Printed for the Publisher: J. G. Torrey, Printer.

1842

NARRATIVE OF LUNSFORD LANE.

[ORIGINAL.]

The Slave Mother's Address TO HER INFANT CHILD.

I cannot tell how much I love To look on thee, my child; Nor how that looking rocks my soul As on a tempest wild; For I have borne thee to the world, And bid thee breathe its air, But soon to see around thee drawn The curtains of despair.

Now thou art happy, child, I know, As little babe can be; Thou dost not fancy in thy dreams But thou art all as free As birds upon the mountain winds, (If thou hast thought of bird,) Or anything thou thinkest of, Or thy young ear has heard.

What are thy little thoughts about? I cannot certain know, Only there's not a wing of them Upon a breath of woe, For not a shadow's on thy face, Nor billow heaves thy breast, All clear as any summer's lake With not a zephyr press'd.

TO THE READER.

I have been solicited by very many friends, to give my narrative to the public. Whatever my own judgment might be, I should yield to theirs. In compliance, therefore, with this general request, and in the hope that these pages may produce an impression favorable to my countrymen in bondage; also that I may realize something from the sale of my work towards the support of a numerous family, I have committed this publication to press. It might have been made two or three, or even six times larger, without diminishing from the interest of any one of its pages indeed with an increased interest but the want of the pecuniary means, and other considerations, have induced me to present it as here seen. Should another edition be called for, and should my friends advise, the work will then be extended to a greater length.

I have not, in this publication attempted or desired to argue anything. It is only a simple narration of such facts connected with my own case, as I thought would be most interesting and instructive to readers generally. The facts will, I think, cast some light upon the policy of a slaveholding community, and the effect on the minds of the more enlightened, the more humane, and the Christian portion of the southern people, of holding and trading in the bodies and souls of men.

I have said in the following pages, that my condition as a slave was comparatively a happy, indeed a highly favored one; and to this circumstance is it owing that I have been able to come up from bondage and relate the story to the public; and that my wife, my mother, and my seven children, are here with me this day. If for any thing this side the invisible world, I bless heaven, it is that I was not born a plantation slave, nor even a house servant under what is termed a hard and cruel master.

It has not been any part of my object to describe slavery generally, and in the narration of my own case I have dwelt as little as possible upon the dark side have spoken mostly of the bright. In whatever I have been obliged to say unfavorable to others, I have endeavored not to overstate, but have chosen rather to come short of giving the full picture omitting much which it did not seem important to my object to relate. And yet I would not venture to say that this publication does not contain a single period which might be twisted to convey an idea more than should be expressed.