Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom

Chapter 3: Venture Smith and the Law of Slavery

· 83 · 3 Venture Smith and the Law of Slavery John Wood Sweet W HEN, as an aging man, Venture Smith recalled his life as a slave in colonial New York and Connecticut, he still bore the scars— both physical and emotional—of an incident that unfolded around 1759, when he was about thirty years old and had been in America some twenty years. His account of the incident is a vivid example of what is so powerful and unusual about the autobiographical Narrative he published in 1798: it offers a rare, eyewitness view into the experience of enslavement and the personal struggles at its heart. Smith’s account also raises broader questions about how other people enslaved in the region sought to shape their own lives—and how their owners sought to control them. Were the challenges Venture navigated and the strategies he pursued particular to his circumstances? Or were they characteristic of a regional landscape of slavery? And if others faced similar obstacles and pursued similar strategies, what accounts for Venture’s extraordinary success in negotiating with a series of owners, securing his freedom, and providing for his family? Venture had been working out in his owner’s barn when he was alarmed by a commotion in the kitchen. He ran to the house and found his mistress, Sarah Stanton, “in a violent passion” with his wife, Meg. With the household head, Thomas Stanton, away on a hunting trip to Long Island, Venture intervened , urging his wife to apologize even though her offense had been a “mere trifle.” He succeeded only in shifting the object of Mrs. Stanton’s ire: she took down her horsewhip and began using it to “glut her fury” against · 84 · h i s t o r y Venture. He reached out, intercepted the blows, and threw the whip into the fire. And there, uneasily, matters stood for a time—even after Thomas Stanton returned home. Then, one morning, as Venture was putting a log in the fireplace, he was struck by powerful blow to the crown of his head—from his master, wielding a club two feet long and as thick as a chairpost. Although “badly wounded” by the blow, Venture deflected the next, snatched the club, and dragged his master outdoors. At this point, Stanton sent for his brother, who lived on the old family homestead just to the south. And Venture, raising the stakes still further, took the club and marched off to lodge a complaint with a neighboring justice of the peace.1 The justice listened to his story with some sympathy, but was evidently reluctant to pursue charges in such a case. Venture was advised to return home to Stanton’s and “live contented with him till he abused me again, and then complain.” Venture acquiesced. But just as he was getting ready to leave, Stanton and his brother arrived. The justice took the opportunity to reprove Stanton: “He asked him for what he treated his slave so harshly and unjustly, and told him what the consequence would be if he continued the same treatment .” Being forced to eat crow did not improve Stanton’s temper. The Stantons set off for home on horseback with Venture, on foot, between them. And as soon as they were out of the justice’s sight, they dismounted and attacked Venture. “I became enraged at this and immediately turned them both under me, laid one of them across the other, and stamped both with my feet what I would” (20). Now Venture had pushed his relationship with Stanton to a dangerous impasse. The law was reluctant to pursue charges against a master who claimed to be correcting a servant, and it was swift to help a master regain control of a violent slave. Venture soon found himself collared by a local constable and two other men who took him to a blacksmith’s shop and had him handcu ffed. He arrived home to find Mrs. Stanton delighted to hear that he had been bound, so he made a point of sardonically thanking her for his new “gold rings.” At this, Thomas Stanton ordered another slave to secure Venture ’s legs with oxchains and a large padlock. Venture remained bound like that for several days, but eventually Stanton realized that he, too, had reached an impasse. He had proved that he could physically overpower his slave. But a slave bound hand and foot is not of much use around a farm...