1859, Meshach Browning and Edward Stabler, Chapter 1, pages 1-9 or 116

In 1781, Meshach Browning was born in Frederick County, Maryland. His father died soon thereafter and his oldest brother was given to a family as a servant to be bound as theirs until age 21, but fled at age 16. At about age 5 Meshach was bundled off in a wagon operated by a “large hateful negro” with no name and was almost crushed in a teamster accident crossing one of Central Maryland’s low mountains. His mother was under constant pressure to give up her children, as family and neighbors pointed out she could not provide for them, and covetously eyed them for the labor and company they might provide in this hard scrapple world. It is obvious, that is early as age 6, children were contributing to the family livelihood, and that by age 10 they were significant earners. By age 12 they were coveted as laborers.

At nine years of age Meshach was stolen from his mother by his aunt and uncle who convinced him it was for his own good and used stealth, not force, to spirit him away. His aunt and uncle owned a young drover-laborer who was not named, but referred to as “young man goon.” No one, least of all Meshach, thought it was unethical to own a person, white or black. Black slaves were always referred to as negroes and white slaves as servant or “goon’ as we have here. The true indication in such an account that people where un-free, was that they were not known by name

Meshach fell in love, first with his cousin at age 10-11 and then with a girl named Mary, for whom he was regarded as a suitor. His uncle constantly pushed into the wild away from settlements, following hunters who did the same. There was some strong impulse to be away from settlements, that, it seems from this reading, might have as an underlying subtext, the desire to be one’s own master, and not the slave of another. As Meshach matured and killed a few deer with rifle and knife, becoming a hunter in his own right, his aunt increased her beatings of him, shattering a shovel on his head. Violence within the household seemed common. Meshach then attempted to punch his aunt but “the young man” unnamed, a slave still, saved his mistress from her abducted and abused nephew.

Among many other accounts of the age, it is obvious to this reader that the reason why slavery was so well accepted by most folks was that, in the English common law system saw the child as the economic property of the parent, and the parent had full rights to torment, torture, and damage his property, and to sign over these parental, temporary chattel, rights to any other party. With the primary parenting method being violence, extreme cruelty to human livestock owned by the family is to be expected.

Eventually, a primitive gun and knife in hand, at age 16, in 1797, Meshach makes his way into the wild expanses of Western Maryland, to eventually tell his tale on the eve of the Civil War, a Maryland man matter-of-factly discussing white slavery according to the veiled conventions of the time.