ourhistory

SOPHIA POOLEY. I was born in Fishkill, New York State, twelve miles from North River. My father’s name was Oliver Burthen, my mother’s Dinah. I am now more than ninety years old. I was stolen from my parents when I was seven years old, and brought to Canada; that was long before the American Revolution [before 1765]. There were hardly any white people in Canada then–nothing here but Indians and wild beasts. Many a deer I have helped catch on the lakes in a canoe: one year we took ninety. I was a woman grown when the first governor of Canada came from England: that was Gov. Simcoe. [Lt. Gov. John Graves Simcoe] My parents were slaves in New York State. My master’s sons-in-law, Daniel Outwaters and Simon Knox, came into the garden where my sister and I were playing among the currant bushes, tied their handkerchiefs over our mouths, carried us to a vessel, put us in the hold, and sailed up the river. I know not how far nor how long–it was dark there all the time. Then we came by land. I remember when we came to Genesee,–there were Indian settlements there,–Onondagas, Senecas, and Oneidas. I guess I was the first colored girl brought into Canada. The white men sold us at Niagara to old Indian Brant, the king [of the Mohawk Indianas, name Joesph Brant according to NPS but omitted from the record is he was a slaveowner as Pooley being a first hand vicitim]. I lived with old Brant about twelve or thirteen years as nigh as I can tell. Brant lived part of the time at Mohawk, part at Ancaster, part at Preston, then called Lower Block: the Upper Block was at Snyder’s Mills. While I lived with old Brant we caught the deer. It was at Dundas at the outlet. We would let the hounds loose, and when we heard them bark we would run for the canoe–Peggy, and Mary, and Katy, Brant’s daughters and I. Brant’s sons, Joseph and Jacob, would wait on the shore to kill the deer when we fetched him in. I had a tomahawk, and would hit the deer on the head–then the squaws would take it by the horns and paddle ashore. The boys would bleed and skin the deer and take the meat to the house. Sometimes white people in the neighborhood, John Chisholm and Bill Chisholm, would come and say ‘t was their hounds, and they must have the meat. But we would not give it up.

In Black Girl Magic fashion, Amanda Gordman, USA young poet laccurae accepting the NAACP Image award said this: “Fredrick Douglass once said, “[R]eformers. . .[s]ee what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction. That is to say we must transform our dreams into fact from fiction. Our people have not always seen our likeness, our brightness, our impact portrayed. But still we have made this movement in our own image. We have battled for our own representation. We have birthed this nation. Become visible, indivisible, vivid, and vibrant in our fight even as we win it. We cannot just possess a vision of justice. We must be able to picture ourselves within it. It is how we honor our ancestors and more, it is how we inspire our successors.” Amanda is Calafia! CALIFORNIA IS ME #caliisme #iamcalafia #BlackQueenMagic #naacp

Self-emancipated and set free his wife, carrying her when she got weak on the run, marked by Author Benjamin Drew a “hero” would give British gold for all to see he broke his own chain at a Blacksmith shop after escaping from prision. He was tortured for wanting to consol his mother and visit his own wife, but upon trying to reclaim her, she was sold to a “negro trader”. . .I wanted to get my things, but I was wise enough to know that every time a slaveholder is out of sight, he is n’t gone; every time his eye is shut, he is not asleep. ” African Warrior John Little knew, he didn’t have a “drop” of white blood in him as he knew his parents African lineage. Little was about to kill someone for he found out they “uncovered my wife,” (raped). How can men, who know they are abusing others all the day, lie down and sleep quietly at night, with big barns of corn, and gin-houses full of cotton, when they know that men feel revengeful, and might burn their property, or even kill them? Even now the thought of my cruel abuses begins sometimes to creep up and kindle my feelings, until I feel unhappy in my own house, and it seems as if the devil was getting the better of me; I feel, then, that I could destroy that tyrant, who, knowing that I was a man, cut me with a whip in a manner worse than I will name. Then I think, “What is the use? here I am, a free man in Canada, and out of his power.” Yet I feel the stirrings of revenge. I know that thousands at the South feel the same, for we have counselled upon it; the slaveholders know this–how will they sleep nights? The slaveholder IS afraid of his slaves: it cannot be otherwise. “

I was in bondage, in Virginia, from birth until thirty years of age. I have had no instruction at all. My mistress used me only tolerably well — she used the switch. At sixteen she began to hire me out at farm- ing. I have worked on several different farms. Some- times my employers would be good, sometimes bad : three bad masters to one good one. I have seen a great deal of punishments. My brother and I were once set to breaking stone for a turnpike: he stopped work to straighten up for a minute or two, when the overseer threw a stone and hit him on the ankle. My brother said, “If you have not any thing better to do than to throw stones, you had better go home.” For this he was tied up to a chestnut tree, stripped, and whipped with hickories until his back was raw. My brother’s owner sued the man he was hired to, and a white man who happened to be a witness, swore that he counted a hundred lashes. The master recovered, I believe, two hundred dollars and the doctor’s bill, but my brother received none of the money. I have been whipped by different persons I have been hired to: once with a cowhide, several times with hickories,–not over thirty-nine lashes at one time. The man I was last hired to did not give me enough to eat, and used me hardly otherwise: I then thought I would leave for a better country. I travelled on three days and nights, suffering for want of food. When I was passing through Orangetown, in Pennsylvania, I went into a shop to get some cake. Two men followed me with muskets. They had followed me from a village I had passed through a little before. They took me, and were going to carry me before a magistrate,–they said to Chambersburg. I walked just before. By and by, watching my chance, I jumped a fence and ran. . .I got into a piece of woods,–thence into a wheat field, where I lay all day; from 9, A. M. until dark. I could not sleep for fear. At night I travelled on, walking until day, when I came to a colored man’s house among mountains. He gave me a good breakfast, for which I thank him, and then directed me on the route. I succeeded, after a while, in finding the underground railroad. I stopped awhile at one place sick, and was taken good care of. I did not stop to work in the States, but came on to Canada. I arrived here a few months ago. I know that liberty is far preferable for every colored man, to slavery. I know many who are very anxious to be free, but they are afraid to start. Money is almost necessary to start with. When I set out, I had seven dollars: it cost me five to get over a river on my way. They knew I must cross, and they charged me as much as they thought I could pay. I have had work enough to support myself since I have been here. I intend to work, and save all I can.