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The end of slavery

My name is Jeremiah, and I was born in 1828 in Minerva, N. Y. My Father was a freedman, and I worked with him on our family??™s farm in New York. When I was 32 years old, I was kidnapped and made a slave on a cotton plantation in Louisiana.

I had been working for two gentlemen driving a team of horse??™s south to Washington City in New York. On the second day of April 1851, I checked into the Gadsby??™sHotel. I wasn??™t feeling well and just wanted to go to bed. I was in a lot of pain, and some people visited my room and suggested I take some medicine they had. I took the medicine and that was all I remembered. Next thing I know, I wake up chained to the floor of a slave pen. A white slave trader by the name of James H.

Burch came in, at which time I told him I was a freedman and had papers to prove it. He beat me on my bare back a hundred times with a cat-o-nine tails. He said he would kill me if I ever mentioned I was free again. I was kept in the pen for 10 days after which I was handcuffed and shackled and placed on a steamboat. When the ship arrived at New Orleans, I became sick with the smallpox. I spent about 3 weeks in the hospital. I finally ended up in Bayou Beouf where I was sold to Edwin Eppes, and forced to work as a slave on his cotton plantation. Living conditions on the plantation were terrible for slaves.

We lived in small huts where 10 slaves were cramped into each hut. We weren??™t given any kind of furniture, and made our own beds out of old rags and hay. We learned quickly not to complain because that would always result in a bad beating. Our food was of poor quality and we survived mostly on fatty meat and cornbread. We were only given one pair of shoes and three items of underwear a year.

These, along with the other items of clothing given to us by our master, were baggy and made of course material. In 1861, a war broke out between the states, but it wasn??™t until 1863 when a battle broke out near the plantation I was at. My master and his family fled leaving us all behind. When the blue coats arrived the next morning, they told us we were free, that we could leave. I was the only slave that knew what freedom was. The rest were born into slavery and didn??™t have anywhere to go.

They didn??™t know what to do. I invited some of the slaves I had become close friends with to travel with me back to New York. It was going to be a long and dangerous trip home.

It took us about 35 days to make it to my family??™s ranch. After almost four years away from home, I was so happy to see my family. I shared my whole terrible experience with them, and I thank God that I am back home with them and once again a free man.

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