From The American Baptist
“A VISIT TO THE SLAVE MOTHER WHO KILLED HER CHILD”
by P.S. Bassett, Fairmount Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, OH, Feb. 12, 1856

“She said, that when the officers and slave-hunters came to the house in which they were concealed, she caught a shovel and struck two of her children on the head, and then took a knife and cut the throat of the third, and tried to kill the other—that if they had given her time, she would have killed them all—that with regard to herself, she cared but little; but she was unwilling to have her children suffer as she had done.
I inquired if she was not excited almost to madness when she committed the act. No, she replied, I was as cool as I now am; and would much rather kill them at once, and thus end their sufferings, than have them taken back to slavery and be murdered by piece-meal. She then told the story of her wrongs. She spoke of her days of suffering, of her nights of unmitigated toll [toil?], while the bitter tears coursed their way down her cheeks . . . .”

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