y in daylight, until I got out
of danger.

The same afternoon that the Indian bought me, he started with me to
his residence, which was fifty or sixty miles distant. And so great
was his confidence in me, that he intrusted me to carry his money. The
amount must have been at least five hundred dollars, which was all in
gold and silver; and when we stopped over night the money and horses
were all left in my charge.

It would have been a very easy matter for me to have taken one of the
best horses, with the money, and run off. And the temptation was truly
great to a man like myself, who was watching for the earliest
opportunity to escape; and I felt confident that I should never have a
better opportunity to escape full handed than then.

CHAPTER XIV.

_Character of my Indian Master.--Slavery among the Indians less
cruel.--Indian carousal.--Enfeebled health of my Indian Master.--His
death.--My escape.--Adventure in a wigwam.--Successful progress toward
liberty._

The next morning I went home with my new master; and by the way it is
only doing justice to the dead to say, that he was the most
reasonable, and humane slaveholder that I have ever belonged to. He
was the last man that pretended to claim property in my person; and
although I have freely given the names and residences of all others
who have held me as a slave, for prudential reasons I shall omit
giving the name of this individual.

He was the owner of a large plantation and quite a number of slaves.
He raised corn and wheat for his own consumption only. There was no
cotton, tobacco, or anything of the kind produced among them for
market. And I found this difference between negro slavery among the
Indians, and the same thing among the white slaveholders of the South.
The Indians allow their slaves enough to eat and wear. They have no
overseers to whip nor drive them. If a slave offends his master, he
sometimes, in a heat of passion, undertakes to chastise him; but it is
as often the case as otherwise, that the slave gets the better of the
fight, and even flogs his master;[4] for which there is no law to
punish him; but when the fight is over that is the last of it. So far
as religious instruction is concerned, they have it on terms of
equality, the bond and the free; they have no respect of persons, they
have neither slave laws nor negro pews. Neither do they separate
husbands and wives, nor parents and children. All things considered,
if I must be