at,
thinking she could find her sister Charlotte. Her first two trials
were unsuccessful; but on the third attempt she found her at work in
the cane-field. She showed her sister's master her own free papers,
and told him how she had bought herself; he said that, if her sister
would pay him as much as she paid her master, she might go too. They
agreed, and he gave her a pass. The two sisters went on board a
steamboat, and worked together for the wages of one, till they had
saved the entire $1,200 for the freedom of the second sister. The
husband of Charlotte was dead; her children were left behind in the
cotton and cane-fields; their master refuses to take less than $2,400
for them; their names and ages are as follows: Zeno, about fifteen;
Antoinette, about thirteen; Joseph, about eleven; and Josephine,
about ten years old. Of my other children, I only know that one, a
girl, named Betsey, is a little way from Norfolk, in Virginia. Her
master, Mr. William Dixon, is willing to sell her for $500.

I do not know where any of my other four children are, nor whether
they be dead or alive. It will be very difficult to find them out: for
the names of slaves are commonly changed with every change of master:
they usually bear the name of the master to whom they belong at the
time: they have no family name of their own by which they can be
traced. Through this circumstance, and their ignorance of reading and
writing, to which they are compelled by law, all trace between parents
and children, who are separated from them in childhood, is lost in a
few years. When, therefore, a child is sold away from its mother, she
feels that she is parting from it forever; there is little likelihood
of her ever knowing what of good or evil befalls it. The way of
finding out a friend or relative who has been sold away for any length
of time, or to any great distance, is to trace them, if possible, to
one master after another, or if that cannot be done, to inquire about
the neighborhood where they are supposed to be, until some one is
found who can tell that such or such a person belonged to such or such
a master; and the person supposed to be the one sought for, may,
perhaps, remember the names of the persons to whom his father and
mother belonged: there is little to be learned from his appearance,
for so many years may have passed away that he may have grown out of
the memory of his parents, or his nearest relations. There are thus no
lasting fami