John W. Bear Life and Travels of John W. Bear, "the Buckeye Blacksmith"

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Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. We will now return to the South side of the Poto mac river. I was now in Virginia, I knew that but it was not a free country and to a free country I was de termined to make my way. Mr. Clay had said that I ought to go west, this seemed to impress itself on my mind, so I concluded to take the first road runing west and keep as much out of public roads as I could, and to go to no white peoples house if I could help it. I knew the negroes were like myself, they could not read and I did not fear any detection frcm them. The Hagans had always told me that if I ran away from them and they caught me that they could sell me the same as if I were a negro. So I had great fear of de tection ou that account in addition to the fears of being caught as I feared for killing Hagan. The first idea that struck me when I started, was what name I should go by and what I should tell the people when questioned. I finally concluded to tell the colored people that I had ran away from a hard master and was trying to get to a free country, and promise them when I got there, and became a man, I would help them to get free too, and in this I have been very suc cessful. I also concluded to never tell white people anything, and never give them the same name nor the same place of destination. I had been so badly treated by the Hagans that I had lost all confidence in white people. The only friend I had while at Hagans was an old black woman. She often hid away a. Cake or piece of pie for me, so I had all confidence in the colored people.