NEGROES WHO OWNED SLAVES 487 



Jones; then she repented and tried to repurchase him, but his white 

 owner now turned the tables by refusing to sell him. 



A free negro named Charley Cobb, a carpenter by trade, lived in 

 Montgomery, Ala. Mr. S. Q. Hale, of Birmingham, remembers this 

 man when he was himself at home on his father's plantation on the 

 Carter Hill road, now the property of the descendants of Colonel 

 Arrington. Charley owned a negro named George; he was also owner 

 of a horse. How to make George and the horse self-supporting was the 

 problem that confronted Charley. In attempting to solve this question, 

 Charley rented of Mr. Hale, senior, a field containing fifteen or twenty 

 acres ; the rent note was for a money consideration. About nine o'clock* 

 on the morning when George began to pitch his crop, he, jug in hand, 

 appeared at the well in Mr. Hale's yard. Here he met one of Mr. 

 Hale's servants, Maum Flora, and it seemed to be a case of love at first 

 sight. Each morning and afternoon throughout the cropping season, 

 George would appear at the well, ostensibly to quench his thirst, and on 

 each of these occasions he and Maum would flirt for an hour or so 

 under the big oak by the well. Meantime Charley was plying his trade 

 in Montgomery, and when the note fell due he asked Mr. Hale, " how 

 much money in addition to all of George's crop would satisfy the 

 claim?" Charley the master had worked for the support of George 

 the slave. 



There was a negro named Nat Butler who lived near Aberdeen, 

 Harford County, Md., who owned a small farm and bought and sold 

 negroes for the southern trade. This sharp and noted fellow would 

 persuade a slave to run off and hide for a few days at a place prepared 

 by Butler, who would in the meantime see the master of the runaway 

 and learn the price he would take for him. If the owner had little 

 hope of recovering his slave and so placed the price low, Nat would buy 

 him and resell him to slave dealers who knew Butler's rendezvous for 

 hidden negroes. His conduct became so notorious that he lost the con- 

 fidence of slave owners and respect of negroes, who several times tried 

 to murder him. 



Jim Scott, a worthy colored man of the same county, was a local 

 preacher and an industrious servant. He bought himself, wife and 

 children from his master, Mr. George Amos, giving his own note, en- 

 dorsed by his white neighbors. He hired out his wife and larger chil- 

 dren and himself for ten years and paid off his indebtedness. He 

 offered his son Henry to Mr. Henry Webster of "Webster's Forest" 

 for three hundred dollars for five years, or until he was twenty-five 

 years of age. Another negro in the same region sold his children in 

 order to purchase his wife and set her free. 



Dick Hunter, of Laurens County, S. C, was the slave of his wife, 

 and he finished paying for himself long after the civil war. He died 



