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THE FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH - HIS OWN WORDS:"We had an overseer, named Blackstone; he was an extremely cruel man to the working hands. He always carried a long hickory whip, a kind of pole. He kept three or four of these in order, that he might not at any time be without one....."I once found one of these hickories lying in the yard, and supposing that he had thrown it away, I picked it up, and boy-like, was using it for a horse; he came along from the field, and seeing me with it, fell upon me with the one he then had in his hand, and flogged me most cruelly. From that, I lived in constant dread of that man; and he would show how much he delighted in cruelty by chasing me from my play with threats and imprecations. I have lain for hours in a wood, or behind a fence, to hide from his eye....."I saw that a crisis was at hand; I had no weapons of any kind, not even a pocket-knife; but I asked myself, shall I surrender without a struggle. The instinctive answer was "No." What will you do? continue to walk; if he runs after you, run; get him as far from the house as you can, then turn suddenly and smite him on the knee with a stone; that will render him, at least, unable to pursue you.This was a desperate scheme, but I could think of no other, and my habits as a blacksmith had given my eye and hand such mechanical skill, that I felt quite sure that if I could only get a stone in my hand, and have time to wield it, I should not miss his knee-pan.He began to breathe short. He was evidently vexed because I did not halt, and I felt more and more provoked at the idea of being thus pursued by a man to whom I had not done the least injury. I had just began to glance my eye about for a stone to grasp, when he made a tiger-like leap at me. "REAL HISTORY is that which was written at the time, but the people who lived it. The lives of slaves can only be imagined by those of us who were fortunate enough to be born in the 20th century -- and only the people who experienced slavery are qualified to tell the story. We are fortunate to have the narratives of a scarce few individuals who lived both as slaves and as freepersons; this is one of those rare pieces of history.

James W. C. Pennington (1807-1870) was born a slave on a Maryland plantation. He escaped to the North at the age of twenty-one, leaving his parents and eleven siblings. He lived first in Pennsylvania before moving to New York and finally Connecticut. As a free man, he educated himself in Christian theology and became a Presbyterian minister dedicated to the abolition of slavery. In 1834, he became the first African American to attend classes at Yale University, and in 1841, he wrote The Origin and History of the Colored People, a history of slavery. This book is his autobiographical narrative and he uses his life experience to denounce the practice of slavery. He condemns what he calls the "chattels principle," where people are listed as goods along with the livestock and other assets of a household. He argues that even the kindest masters cannot be true Christians; their willingness to buy and sell other human beings is contrary to the very foundations of Christianity. The effects of slavery not only on the slave but also on the masters and society, characterizes much of the rest of his narrative.