are regarded, where they are
known, as among the most kind men to their slaves. Mr. Smith, some of
whose conduct will doubtless seem strange to the reader, is sometimes
taunted with being an abolitionist, in consequence of the interest he
manifests towards the colored people. If to any his character appear like
a riddle, they should remember that, men, like other things, have "two
sides," and often a top and a bottom in addition.

While in the South I succeeded by stealth in learning to read and write a
little, and since I have been in the North I have learned more. But I need
not say that I have been obliged to employ the services of a friend, in
bringing this Narrative into shape for the public eye. And it should
perhaps be said on the part of the writer, that it has been hastily
compiled, with little regard to style, only to express the ideas
accurately and in a manner to be understood.

LUNSFORD LANE.

Boston, July 4, 1842.

NARRATIVE.

The small city of Raleigh, North Carolina, it is known, is the capital of
the State, situated in the interior, and containing about thirty six
hundred inhabitants.[A] Here lived MR. SHERWOOD HAYWOOD, a man of
considerable respectability, a planter, and the cashier of a bank. He
owned three plantations, at the distances respectively of seventy-five,
thirty, and three miles from his residence in Raleigh. He owned in all
about two hundred and fifty slaves, among the rest my mother, who was a
house servant to her master, and of course a resident in the city. My
father was a slave to a near neighbor. The apartment where I was born and
where I spent my childhood and youth was called "the kitchen," situated
some fifteen or twenty rods from the "great house." Here the house
servants lodged and lived, and here the meals were prepared for the people
in the mansion.

[Footnote A: 175 whites--207 free people of color--and 2,244 slaves. Total
3,626; according to the census of 1840.]

On the 30th of May, 1803, I was ushered into the world; but I did not
begin to see the rising of its dark clouds, nor fancy how they might be
broken and dispersed, until some time afterwards. My infancy was spent
upon the floor, in a rough cradle, or sometimes in my mother's arms. My
early boyhood in playing with the other boys and girls, colored and white,
in the yard, and occasionally doing such little matters of labor as one of
so young years could. I knew no difference between myself and the white