onstantly kept up to
accommodate the trade. And slave auctions were as common in Richmond as
dress goods auctions in Philadelphia; notwithstanding this fact, strange
as it may seem, the Underground Rail Road brought away large numbers of
passengers from Richmond, Petersburg and Norfolk, and not a few of them
lived comparatively within a hair's breadth of the auction block. Many
of those from these localities were amongst the most intelligent and
respectable slaves in the South, and except at times when disheartened
by some grave disaster which had befallen the road, as, for instance,
when some friendly captain or conductor was discovered in aiding
fugitives, many of the thinking bondmen were daily manoeuvering and
watching for opportunities to escape or aid their friends so to do. This
state of things of course made the naturally hot blood of Virginians
fairly boil. They had preached long and loudly about the contented and
happy condition of the slaves,--that the chief end of the black man was
to worship and serve the white man, with joy and delight, with more
willingness and obedience indeed than he would be expected to serve his
Maker. So the slave-holders were utterly at a loss to account for the
unnatural desire on the part of the slaves to escape to the North where
they affirmed they would be far less happy in freedom than in the hands
of those so "kind and indulgent towards them." Despite all this, daily
the disposition increased, with the more intelligent slaves, to distrust
the statements of their masters especially when they spoke against the
North. For instance if the master was heard to curse Boston the slave
was then satisfied that Boston was just the place he would like to go
to; or if the master told the slave that the blacks in Canada were
freezing and starving to death by hundreds, his hope of trying to reach
Canada was made tenfold stronger; he was willing to risk all the
starving and freezing that the country could afford; his eagerness to
find a conductor then would become almost painful.

The situations of Jeremiah and Julia Smith, however, were not considered
very hard, indeed they had fared rather better than most slaves in
Virginia, nevertheless it will be seen that they desired to better their
condition, to keep off of the auction-block at least. Jeremiah could
claim to have no mixture in his blood, as his color was of such a pure
black; but with the way of the world, in respect to shrewdness and