Chapter I: Front Matter

THE
ESCAPE;
OR,
A LEAP FOR FREEDOM.

A Drama,
IN FIVE ACTS.

BY WILLIAM WELLS BROWN,
AUTHOR OF “CLOTEL,” “SKETCHES OF PLACES AND PEOPLE ABROAD,” ETC.

“Look on this picture, and on this.”—HAMLET.

BOSTON:
R. F. WALLCUT, 21 CORNHILL.
1858.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen
hundred and fifty-eight,
BY WILLIAM WELLS BROWN,
In the Clerk’s office of the District Court for the District of
Massachusetts.

BOSTON:
J. B. YERRINTON AND SON,
PRINTERS.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

This play was written for my own amusement, and not with the remotest thought that it would ever be seen by the public eye. I read it privately, however, to a circle of my friends, and through them was invited to read it before a Literary Society. Since then, the Drama has been given in various parts of the country. By the earnest solicitation of some in whose judgment I have the greatest confidence, I now present it in a printed form to the public. As I never aspired to be a dramatist, I ask no favor for it, and have little or no solicitude for its fate. If it is not readable, no word of mine can make it so; if it is, to ask favor for it would be needless.

The main features in the Drama are true. GLEN and MELINDA are actual characters, and still reside in Canada. Many of the incidents were drawn from my own experience of eighteen years at the South. The marriage ceremony, as performed in the second act, is still adhered to in many of the Southern States, especially in the farming districts.

The ignorance of the slave, as seen in the case of “BIG SALLY,” is common wherever chattel slavery exists. The difficulties created in the domestic circle by the presence of beautiful slave women, as found in DR. GAINES’S family, is well understood by all who have ever visited the valley of the Mississippi.

The play, no doubt, abounds in defects, but as I was born in slavery, and never had a day’s schooling in my life, I owe the public no apology for errors.

W. W. B.

CHARACTERS REPRESENTED.

DR. GAINES, _proprietor of the farm at Muddy Creek_.
REV. JOHN PINCHEN, _a clergyman_.
DICK WALKER, _a slave speculator_.
MR. WILDMARSH, _neighbor to Dr. Gaines_.
MAJOR MOORE, _a friend of Dr. Gaines_.
MR. WHITE, _a citizen of Massachusetts_.
BILL JENNINGS, _a slave speculator_.
JACOB SCRAGG, _overseer to Dr. Gaines_.
MRS. GAINES, _wife of Dr. Gaines_.
MR. and MRS. NEAL, and DAUGHTER, _Quakers, in Ohio_.
THOMAS, _Mr. Neal’s hired man_.
GLEN, _slave of Mr. Hamilton, brother-in-law of Dr. Gaines_.
CATO, SAM, SAMPEY, MELINDA, DOLLY, SUSAN, and BIG SALLY, _slaves
of Dr. Gaines_.
PETE, NED, and BILL, _slaves_.
OFFICERS, LOUNGERS, BARKEEPER, &c.

THE ESCAPE.