To Miss Lucy Osgood.
Wayland, 1857.
I have lately been much interested about the young Kentucky lady 1 who emancipated all her slaves, in consequence of reading Charles Sumner's speeches.
She and I correspond, as mother and daughter, and I should infer from her letters, even if I knew nothing else about her, that she was endowed with a noble, generous, sincere, and enthusiastic nature.
It is no slight sacrifice, at nineteen years old, to give up all one's property, and go forth into the world to earn her own living, penniless and friendless; “but I shall earn my living with a light heart, because I shall have a clean conscience.”
I quote her own words,
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which she wrote in an hour of sadness, in consequence of being cut by friends, reproached by relations, and deluged with insulting letters from every part of the South.
Her relatives resort to both coaxing and threatening, to induce her publicly to deny that she wrote the “Autobiography of a female slave.”
The truthfulness of her nature fires up at this.
In one of her letters to me she says, “What a mean thing they would make of me!
I'll die first.”
She is true metal.
and rings clear under their blows.
Yet she has a loving, womanly heart, made desolate and sad by separation front early friends.
We abolitionists ought to rally round the noble young martyr.
I wish you had a chance to get acquainted with her. She struck me as quite a remarkable young person.
More and more I become convinced that there is a natural difference in the organization of people.
There is Mattie, brought up in a slave-holding community, and under the influence of an intensely aristocratic family, vet, from her earliest years, spontaneously giving all her sympathies to the poor.
When she went to school, she was a great pet with a wealthy lady, a friend of her grandfather's. The lady hired :t slave of the grandfather, and caused her to be whipped for some offence.
Mattie heard of it, on her way from school, and rushed into the lady's house to pour forth her boiling indignation.
She called her a “cruel monster,” and told her that “the blue flames of hell were preparing for those who treated poor people so!”
The lady tried to pacify her, and asked her to sit down and have some cake.
“I don't want to sit down in your house” she exclaimed ; and off she went.
The grandfather tried to make her apologize to the lady for her rudeness.
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Finding persuasion useless, he kept her in the garret three days on bread and water.
It was of no use, the child always had the same answer.
“She is a cruel monster.
It is the truth.
I am not sorry I said it, and I can't say I am sorry.”
The grandfather's will gave up to the firmness of her conscientious convictions.
M. never apologized.
That early incident shows that she is of the stuff martyrs are. made of....
I suppose you have heard what a glorious time Mattie had when she emancipated her slaves.
They danced and sang and sobbed, and would have kissed her feet, had she permitted.
Then they began to think of her, and insisted upon continuing to send their wages to her, because she was not strong enough to work.
When she refused, they pleaded hard to send her half their earnings.
She wrote to me about it, and added, “I assure you, dear Mrs. Child, there are very few people who know the real beauty of the African character.”
I believe it. 