The Freedmen's Book Part 1

The Freedmen's Book.

by Lydia Maria Child.

IGNATIUS SANCHO.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

This was the name of a remarkable African, who excited a good deal of interest in his day. His father and mother were stolen from Africa and put on board a slave-s.h.i.+p in 1729, which was one hundred and thirty-six years ago. He was born during the pa.s.sage, and when the vessel arrived at Carthagena, in South America, he was baptized by the name of Ignatius. His mother died soon after, and his father, seeing no means of escape from slavery, killed himself in a fit of despair. The man who took possession of the little orphan, and claimed to be his master, carried him to England, and gave him to three unmarried sisters who lived at Greenwich. He was then about two years old, a bright, lively, funny little creature. As he grew older, he showed such an inquisitive mind, said so many droll things, and was so full of mischief, that the ladies named him Sancho, after a very comical character in a famous old Spanish novel. He was very eager in the pursuit of knowledge; but this commendable disposition was not approved by the ladies. They thought that all a black servant had occasion to know was how to obey orders, and that it was not necessary or proper for him to learn to read and write. But nature had given Ignatius a very lively mind, and a very susceptible heart, and neither of them could be kept quiet. He early plunged into love affairs, and was always overrunning with fun and frolic. Doubtless he was a great trial to the respectable maiden ladies, who were training him for a servant; and he, on his part, thought them very sour, severe, and disagreeable. Sometimes, when they were angry with him, they reminded him that he had been a slave, and threatened to send him into slavery again. This excited uneasiness in his mind, and kindled resentment.

The Duke of Montagu lived in the neighborhood, and his attention was attracted by the bright, frank countenance of the black boy. He entered into conversation with him occasionally, and was so much struck by his intelligence and wit, that he told the ladies their servant was a remarkable lad, and that his earnest desire to improve his mind ought to be gratified. They persisted in their opinion that knowledge was a very improper and dangerous thing for a black servant. But the Duke introduced him to the d.u.c.h.ess, and they both encouraged him to learn to read and write. They lent him books, and were greatly entertained by his bright remarks concerning what he read.

It was a great grief to Ignatius when the friendly Duke died. He besought the d.u.c.h.ess to receive him into her service, and she consented.

He remained in her household as long as she lived. At her death, she left him an annuity of about one hundred and fifty dollars a year; and he had three hundred and fifty dollars, which he had laid up from his wages. He might have made this sum the foundation of a comfortable little property. But nature had made him very full of fun and frolic. He had such lively manners, and uttered so many pleasant jokes, that his company was much sought for. This proved a temptation too strong for him. He accepted invitations to go to taverns, where he gambled away his earnings. He had a great pa.s.sion for going to the theatre; and his conduct with regard to women was far from being correct.

But he soon saw the error of his ways, and resolved to reform. He went to the Chaplain of Montagu House, and begged to be taken into his service, where he remained several months. The descendants of his old friend, the Duke, encouraged him to persevere in his good resolutions; and when the young Duke saw that he continued sober and industrious, he took him into his employ. By the blessing of the Heavenly Father, another saving influence came to help him into the paths of virtue. He formed a serious attachment for a very worthy young woman from the West Indies, to whom he was soon after married. He remained in the employ of the Duke of Montagu until he was about forty-four years old. Frequent attacks of the gout, and clumsiness resulting from an hereditary tendency to corpulence, rendered him unfit to continue in the service to which he had so long been accustomed. His good friend and patron the Duke a.s.sisted him to establish a small shop for groceries. By economy and industry, he and his good wife managed to rear and educate well a numerous family of children.

He always retained his love of learning, and was such a diligent reader, that he was well acquainted with the current literature of that time. He was treated with respect and attention by many intelligent and educated people. Though not so full of fun as he was in his younger days, his conversation was entertaining. The letters he wrote to various persons abound with good sense, and show that he was very affectionate and devoted as a husband and father. He evidently regarded his wife as the best blessing of his life. In one of his letters to a friend he says: "The hot weather does not befriend Mrs. Sancho, but time will, I hope.

If true worth could plead exemption from pain and sickness, she would, by right divine, enjoy the best of health." On another occasion he writes: "I can compare her to nothing so properly as a diamond in the dirt. But, my friend, that is Fortune's fault, not mine; for had I the power, I would case her in gold." Years later, he writes: "Dame Sancho would be better in health, if she cared less. I am her barometer. If a sigh escapes me, it is answered by a tear in her eye. I often a.s.sume gayety to illume her dear sensibility with a smile, which twenty years ago almost bewitched me, and which still const.i.tutes my highest pleasure. May such be your lot, my friend. What more can friends.h.i.+p wish you than to glide down the stream of time with a partner of congenial principles and fine feelings, whose very looks speak tenderness and sentiment."

After a severe illness he wrote to a friend: "I had excruciating pains and great lack of patience. Mrs. Sancho had a week of it. Gout did not sweeten my temper. It was was.h.i.+ng week, and she had to attend the shop.

G.o.d bless her, and reward her. She is good; good in heart, good in principle, good by habit."

The children appear to have been the delight of his heart. He called them "Sanchonettas," which would be the Italian way of saying Little Sanchos. He was never tired of describing their little winning ways. At the end of a letter to one of his friends he wrote: "Lydia trots about amazingly; and Kitty imitates her, with this addition, that she is as mischievous as a monkey." But little William, his youngest, was evidently his pet. To another of his friends he wrote: "You cannot imagine what hold little Billy gets of me. He grows, he prattles, every day he learns something new. The rogue is fond of me to excess. By his good-will he would be always in the shop with me. The little monkey! He clings round my legs; and if I chide him, or look sour, he holds up his little mouth to kiss me."

Ignatius Sancho had a very kind heart. It hurt his feelings very much to see any animal tormented. He tried to get some laws pa.s.sed to prevent cruel market-men from abusing their donkeys; and he always tried to be a friend to everybody that was in distress. In one of his letters he says: "The joy of giving and of making happy is almost the attribute of a G.o.d.

There is as much sweetness conveyed to the senses by doing a right good-natured deed as our frame can consistently bear."

Such a disposition is better than a remarkable intellect. But he had a quick intellect also, and generally took sensible views of things.

Writing to a young colored friend, who had been somewhat wild, he says:--

"Look round upon the miserable fate of almost all of our unfortunate color. See slavery added to ignorance. See the contempt of the very wretches who roll in affluence from our labors. Hear the ill-bred, heart-racking abuse of the ignorant vulgar. If you tread as cautiously as the strictest rect.i.tude can guide you, you must suffer from this. But if you are armed with truth and conscious integrity, you will be sure of the plaudits and countenance of the good.

"You are a happy lad. You have kind benefactors, to whom you ought to look up with reverence, and humbly beg the Almighty to give you strength to imitate them in doing good. Your parts are as quick as most men's. If you urge your speed in the race of virtue with the same zeal you have exhibited in error, you will recover, to the satisfaction of your n.o.ble patrons, and to the glory of yourself.

"Some philosopher, whose name I forget, wished for a window in his breast, that the world might see his heart. I recommend him to your imitation. Vice is a coward. To be truly brave, a man must be truly good. You hate the name of cowardice; then detest a lie and shun liars.

Be above revenge. If others have taken advantage either of your guilt or your distress, punish them only with forgiveness; and if you can serve them at any future time, do it.

"I sincerely congratulate thee upon thy repentance. It is thy birthday to real happiness."

To one of the white gentlemen who liked to correspond with him, he wrote:--

"There is something so amazingly grand and affecting in contemplating the works of the Divine Architect, either in the moral or the intellectual world, that I think one may rightly call it the cordial of the soul, the best antidote against pride and discontent. The friendly warmth of that glorious planet the sun, the leniency of the air, the cheerful glow of the atmosphere, make me involuntarily cry, 'Lord, what is man, that thou, in thy mercy, art so mindful of him? or what is the son of man, that thou so parentally carest for him?'

"Sometimes, when I endeavor to turn my thoughts inward, to review the powers or properties the indulgent all-wise Father has endowed me with, I am struck with wonder and with awe; poor, insignificant worm as I am, in comparison with superior beings, mortal like myself. At the head of our riches I reckon the power of reflection. Where doth it lie? Search every member, from the toe to the nose,--they are all ready for action, but they are all dead to thought. It is that breath of life which the Sacred Architect breathed into the nostrils of the first man. We feel and acknowledge it, but it is quite past the power of definition. Then to think of the promise of never-ending existence! To rise, perhaps, by regular progression from planet to planet, to behold the wonders of immensity, to pa.s.s from good to better, increasing in goodness, in knowledge, in love. To glory in our Redeemer, to joy in ourselves, to be acquainted with prophets, sages, heroes, and poets of old times, and to join in the symphony with angels."

To a white young friend, who had obtained a situation in India, he wrote:--

"It is with sincere pleasure I hear you have a lucrative establishment.

Your good sense will naturally lead you to a proper economy, as distant from frigid parsimony as from heedless extravagance. As you may have some time for recreation, give me leave to obtrude my poor advice. I have heard it more than once observed of fortunate adventurers, that they come home rich in purse, but wretchedly barren in intellect. My dear Jack, the mind wants food as well as the stomach. Why, then, should not one wish to increase in knowledge as well as in money? The poet Young says,--

'Books are fair Virtue's advocates and friends.'

My advice to you is, to lay by something every year to buy a little library. You have to thank G.o.d for strong natural parts; you have a feeling, humane heart; you write with sense and discernment. Improve yourself, my dear Jack. Then if it should please G.o.d to return you to your friends with a fortune, the embellishments of your mind may be ever considered as greatly superior to your riches, and only inferior to the goodness of your heart. This is a good old adage: 'A few books and a few friends, and those well chosen.'"

The same young friend wrote a letter to his father, from Bombay, in India, in which he wrote: "The inhabitants here, who are chiefly blacks, are a set of canting, deceitful people, of whom one must have great caution."

Ignatius Sancho was always ready to defend the despised and the oppressed, and his sympathy was all the more lively if they were of his own color. He at once wrote to his young friend:--

"In one of your letters to your father, you speak with honest indignation of the treachery and chicanery of the natives of India. My good friend, you should remember from whom they learned those vices. The first visitors from Christian countries found them a simple, harmless people. But the cursed avidity for wealth urged those first visitors, and all the succeeding ones, to such acts of deception and wanton cruelty, that the poor, ignorant natives soon learned their knavish arts, and turned them upon their teachers. As a resident of your country, Old England, I love it. I love it for its freedom. For the many blessings I enjoy in it England shall ever have my warmest wishes, prayers, and blessings. But I must observe, and I say it with reluctance, that the conduct of your country has been uniformly wicked in the East Indies, in the West Indies, and on the coast of Guinea. The grand object of English navigators, and indeed of all the navigators of Christian nations, has been money, money, money. Commerce was meant by the goodness of Deity to diffuse the various goods of the earth into every part; to unite mankind with the blessed bonds of brotherly love and mutual dependence. Enlightened Christians should diffuse the riches of the Gospel of Peace together with the commodities of their respective lands. If commerce were attended with strict honesty and religion for companions, it would be a blessing to every sh.o.r.e it touched at.

"The poor wretched Africans are blessed with a most fertile and luxuriant soil; but they are rendered miserable by what Providence meant for a blessing. The abominable traffic in slaves, and the horrid cruelty and treachery of the petty kings, is encouraged by their Christian customers. They carry them strong liquors, powder, and bad fire-arms to inflame them to madness, and to furnish them with the h.e.l.lish means of killing and kidnapping. It is a subject that sours my blood. I mention these things to guard my friend from being too hasty in condemning a people who have been made much worse by their Christian visitors.

"Wherever thou residest, make human nature thy study. Whatever may be the religion or the complexion of men, study their hearts. Let simplicity, kindness, and charity be thy guides; and with these, even savages will respect you, while G.o.d will bless you."

The writings of the Rev. Laurence Sterne, who was living in England at that time, were well calculated to inspire humanity toward animals and kindly feelings toward the poor. These writings were very popular, and two of the characters conspicuous in them, called Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim, were great favorites with the public. Ignatius Sancho especially delighted in the writings of Sterne; and in 1776, when he was about forty-seven years old, he addressed a letter to him as follows:--

"REVEREND SIR,--It would perhaps look like an insult upon your humanity to apologize for the liberty I am taking. I am one of those people whom the vulgar and illiberal call 'Negurs.' The first part of my life was rather unlucky, as I was placed in a family who judged ignorance to be the best and only security for obedience. By unwearied application I got a little reading and writing. Through G.o.d's blessing, the latter part of my life has been truly fortunate, for I have spent it in the service of one of the best families in the kingdom. My chief pleasure has been books. How very much, good sir, am I, among millions, indebted to you for the character of your amiable Uncle Toby! I declare I would walk ten miles, in dog-days, to shake hands with the honest Corporal. Your sermons have touched me to the heart, and I hope have amended it.

In your tenth discourse I find this very affecting pa.s.sage: 'Consider how great a part of our species, in all ages, down to this, have been trodden under the feet of cruel and capricious tyrants, who would neither hear their cries nor pity their distresses. Consider Slavery, what a bitter draught it is, and how many millions are made to drink of it.'

"I am sure you will forgive me if I beseech you to give some attention to Slavery, as it is practised at this day in the West Indies. That subject, handled in your striking manner, would perhaps ease the yoke of many; but if only of one, what a feast for a benevolent heart! and sure I am, you are an Epicurean[1] in acts of charity. You, who are universally read and as universally admired, could not fail. Dear sir, think that in me you behold the uplifted hands of thousands of my brother Moors. You pathetically observe that grief is eloquent. Figure to yourself their att.i.tudes, hear their supplications, and you cannot refuse."

Mr. Sterne wrote the following reply:--

"July 27th, 1766.

"There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events of this world, as well as the great ones. I had been writing a tender tale of the sorrows of a poor, friendless negro girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter, in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came to me. But why _her_ brethren or _your_ brethren, Sancho, any more than _mine_? It is by the finest tints, and the most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face to the sootiest complexion. At which of these tints are the ties of blood to cease? and how many shades lower in the scale must we descend, ere mercy is to vanish with them?

"It is no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to _use_ the other half like brutes, and then endeavor to _make_ them so. For my part, I never look Westward, when I am in a pensive mood, without thinking of the burdens our brothers and sisters are there carrying. If I could ease their shoulders from one ounce of them, I declare I would this hour set out upon a pilgrimage to Mecca for their sakes. It casts a sad shade upon the world, that so great a part of it are, and have so long been, bound in chains of darkness and chains of misery. I cannot but respect you and felicitate you, that by so much laudable diligence you have broken the chains of darkness, and that by falling into the hands of so good and merciful a family, you have been rescued by Providence from the chains of misery.

"And so, good-hearted Sancho, adieu. Believe me, I will not forget your letter.

"Yours, "LAURENCE STERNE."

The last sickness of Ignatius Sancho was very painful, but he was tenderly cared for by his good wife. He was fifty-two years old when he died. After his death, a small volume was published, containing a number of his letters, some articles he had written for newspapers, and an engraved likeness of him, which looks very bright and good-natured. The book was published by subscription, in which a large number of the English n.o.bility and some distinguished literary men joined.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Epicureans were the followers of a philosopher in ancient Greece who taught that pleasure was the great object in life,--an excellent doctrine, if confined to the highest kind of pleasure, which consists in doing good.

EXTRACT FROM THE TENTH PSALM.

"The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor. He hath said in his heart, G.o.d hath forgotten; He hideth his face; He will never see it.

Thou _hast_ seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand. The poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble. Thou wilt cause thine ear to hear; thou wilt prepare their heart to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress."