Lavinia Bell, A Story to Pass On (Part 1)

Born in Washington DC  / Enslaved in Texas  /  Interviewed in Canada 1861

I was going over newspaper and magazine interviews, 1827-1863 in collection edited by John W. Blassingame.  Lavinia Bell’s story is particularly touching in her determination to be free at all costs yet disturbing in the raw violence to which she was subjected. 

Born free in Washington she was stolen as an infant and enslaved in Galveston, Texas.  As the property of William Whirl, his wife, Polly, taught Lavinia to be a performer, “taught to dance, sing, cackle like a hen, or crow like a rooster…”  About the age of 13 or 14, she was sent to the cotton field an exposed to a different level of bondage.

In the Galveston, Texas cotton field the Whirl's laboring slaves were exposed to the relentless sun naked, their hair shaved close to their heads, and receiving fifty lashes daily, whether they worked or not. 

Bell reported that “they were also compelled to go down on their knees, and harnessed to a plough, to plough up the lad, with boys for riders, towhip them when they flagged in their work.  At other times they were compelled to walk on hackles used for hackling flax.”  Although she didn’t know where to go, she attempted escape many, many times unsuccessfully.  

Once she attempted escape with her husband who, for two years, had worn legs irons--which had grown into his flesh.  As one can imagine his limited ability to move caused their capture.  He was so abused and tortured afterward that he died and Bell was returned. 

Polly Whirl, the wife of the brutal slave owner told Bell about Canada and using the North Star as a guide.  Pregnant, naked, surviving on herbs and nuts the determined Bell escaped and managed to reach the state of Mississippi, specifically, a place called ‘Shades of Death.’  Unable to travel further she gave birth to twins, one dead and the other she gave to a woman.  She was arrested as a fugitive slave and Whirl came to claim her. 

It appears Whirl had difficulty proving her identity/ownership; on his return to Texas he made sure that he would always be able to distinguish her.  “He slit both her ears, then he branded her on the back of her left hand with a hot iron, cut off with an axe the little finger and bone connecting therewith of her right hand, searing the wound with a hot iron, and also branded her on the stomach with a letter.” 

It appears she shared the Canadian freedom information with other slaves.  Whirl tried to force her into revealing where she obtained the information, promising not to whip her if she told.  The unbelievable spirit and determination of this woman needs to be remembered.  She refused to tell and he had her fixed in what was called a ‘buck.’ 

Buck—“This was a doubling her in two, until her legs were passed over her head, where they were kept by a stick passed across the back of her neck.”  (This caused her permanent damage.)  “While in this position, several panels of a board fence were raised, a notch cut in the boards, ad her neck placed in the notch.  She was then whipped to such a degree that the overseer, more humane than the master, interfered to prevent a murder.”

“The wounds caused by the lash were rubbed with salt and water,  and pepper, to keep away the green flies.  After this on one occasion, Whirl struck her on the head with a hoe-handle a number of times, and actually broke her skull.  She says herself that a silver plate had to be put in, and that her master afterwards told her, cursing her, that she had ‘a dollar in her head to pay her way to purgatory.’”

The level of violence in her narrative is unimaginable; yet, it is unmatched by her pure determination.  To be continued.