Among our hands was one whom we used to call Big Harry.  He was a stout, athletic man—­very intelligent, and an excellent workman; but he was of a high and proud spirit, which the weary and crushing weight of a life of slavery had not been able to subdue.  On almost every plantation at the South you may find one or more individuals, whose look and air show that they have preserved their self-respect as men;—­that with them the power of the tyrant ends with the coercion of the body—­that the soul is free, and the inner man retaining the original uprightness of the image of God.  You may know them by the stern sobriety of their countenances, and the contempt with which they regard the jests and pastimes of their miserable and degraded companions, who, like Samson, make sport for the keepers of their prison-house.  These men are always feared as well as hated by their task-masters.  Harry had never been whipped, and had always said that he would die rather than submit to it.  He made no secret of his detestation of the overseer.  While most of the slaves took off their hats, with cowering submission, in his presence, Harry always refused to do so.  He never spoke to him except in a brief answer to his questions.  Master George, who knew, and dreaded the indomitable spirit of the man, told the overseer, before he left the plantation, to beware how he attempted to punish him.  But, the habits of tyranny in which Huckstep had so long indulged, had accustomed him to abject submission, on the part of his subjects; and he could not endure this upright and unbroken manliness.  He used frequently to curse and swear about him, and devise plans for punishing him on account of his impudence as he called it.

A pretext was at last afforded him.  Sometime in August of this year, there was a large quantity of yellow unpicked cotton lying in the gin house.  Harry was employed at night in removing the cotton see, which has been thrown out by the gin.  The rest of the male hands were engaged during the day in weeding the cotton for the last time, and in the nigh, in burning brush on the new lands clearing for the next year’s crop.  Harry was told one evening to go with the others and assist in burning the brush.  He accordingly went and the next night a double quantity of seed had accumulated in the gin house:  and although he worked until nearly 2 o’clock in the morning, he could not remove it all.

The next morning the overseer came into the field, and demanded of me why I had not whipped Harry for not removing all the cotton seed.  He then called aloud to Harry to come forward and be whipped.  Harry answered somewhat sternly that he would neither be struck by overseer nor driver; that he had worked nearly all night, and had scarcely fallen asleep when the horn blew to summon him to his toil in the field.  The overseer raved and threatened, but Harry paid no farther attention to him.  He then turned to me and asked me for my pistols, with a pair of which