Rambles of a runaway from southern slavery [electronic resource] / Henry Goings ; edited by Calvin Schermerhorn, Michael Plunkett, and Edward Gaynor.

9780813932408 (electronic book)
9780813932385
0813932386

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2012.

English

1 online resource (xxxvi, 157 p.) : maps.

E450 .G65 2012eb

306.3/62092 B

Henry Goings, the son of slave parents Abraham and Catharine Turner, was born in Virginia on the estate of James Walker, "within three miles of a place called Window Shades," (possibly the Windsor Shades plantation in New Kent County). His birth name was Elijah Turner. When Walker died, the slave family was broken up, and Elijah and one of his sisters were sold to the master's son-in-law, Pearson Pricket. Soon thereafter, the Prickets moved to Halifax, North Carolina, where Elijah was sold again, eventually becoming the property of Joseph Smith who renamed him Elijah Smith. When Elijah was approximately 16 years old, the Smiths relocated to Tennessee, and later to Florence, Alabama. Elijah's duties were confined to the house and stables, and as a groom and valet he frequently accompanied his master on extended journeys to Georgia, Louisiana and elsewhere. In Alabama, Elijah married Maria White the property of neighboring plantation owner James Jackson. Six years after Elijah's marriage, Joseph Smith died leaving his estate to his young widow. Two years later, when it appeared Mrs. Smith was going to move to Mississippi, Elijah decided to run away. He assumed the name of "Henry Goings," whose "free paper" he had purchased previously for $15, and fled North, leaving his wife behind. "Henry Goings" lived in various places in Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, before settling in Canada, where he was still living at the time the book was published. The narrative mentions his homestead of a one acre lot and house in Chatham which he sold to pay legal bills. A newspaper advertisement announcing the sale of a farm belonging to Henry Goings appeared in the "Voice of the Fugitive," (Canada's first black abolitionist newspaper) on Dec. 16, 1852. In 1855 Goings was interviewed by Boston journalist Benjamin Drew, who published the interview under the name "Henry Gowens" on pages 138-143 of "A North-side view of slavery" (Boston : J.P. Jewett, 1856). "Gowens" states that he was born in Virginia and lived on a Lauderdale County, Alabama plantation and tells a story of a cruel overseer named Kimball and a slaved named Donnison. A variant of the story appears in Goings' 1869 narrative.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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Carter G. Woodson Institute series.

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