Aspects of Slavery and Freedom Seeking in North Carolina
Fire-Theft
Theft and stealing could be considered anything that in the enslaved possession or activity that did not gain the approval from a slaveholder and/or permitted by the slave system. Thus, an enslaved person who found time to learn how to read and/or write, without permission, stole lessons, whereas those who used inappropriate times to hunt or grow a garden could be punished for stealing time or labor. In addition, those who fled in hopes of reaching geographical freedom were accused of stealing themselves. Because enslaved people were not legally able to own property, whatever items had, beyond what the slaveholders allotted to them, could be viewed as stolen. James Curry often snuck into the “big house” to read the Bible and stole his lessons.[note: Enslaved people also practiced a good bit of communalism and their ideas of private property cannot be viewed as the slaveholder. If the enslaved agreed with the idea of private property like the slaveholder, they would be agreeing with the conditions as being possessed as private property. Therefore, the enslaved had a different understanding of private property.]
Enslaved people understood the power of accepting the slaveholders’ view of theft. They knew that if they accepted theft of the slaveholders’ terms, then they would be mentally bonded, take a major step toward letting slavery win and accept their plight without a murmur.
Theft, taking, or retrieving was a form of resistance as a method to vent frustration and confrontation, as it often served as an act of revenge or punishment. Beyond and within the circumstances of slavery, enslaved people often felt wronged, slighted, or betrayed by slaveholders. They felt these wrongs could not be overlooked and necessitated a consequence or some form of compensation.
Some enslaved people responded in situations where slaveholders or any individual of the slaveholder’s caste did an act in a manner that crossed the line or broke the demands of human decency and could not be tolerated. As an enslaved person appraised the situation, the theft was sometimes perceived as the method of revenge.
Theft was a direct challenge to the slaveholders. Some enslaved understood theft as a way to show that slaveholders did not have total control over their lives. By extension, it showed that enslaved people did not blindly accept the system of morality imposed upon them and often found the slaveholder’s morality to be hypocritical and illegitimate.
In most cases, taking was done to make up for an inadequate diet. John Little noted, “For many times, often my hard days were, being but half fed. I went out to steal a chicken, or a goose or a pig, as all slaves have to do.” Thomas Jones noted, “Many of the slaves were so hungry, often their excessive toil, that they were compelled to steal food in addition to food allowances.” In other instances, some taking or stealing of taking can also be attributed to the desire to trade property with other enslaved people or white people.
Nevertheless, theft or taking of any kind was not always tolerated by some enslaved persons, for example, James Curry was taught by his mother that all stealing was wrong and honored that teaching for most of his life with the exception of when he decided to steal himself and escape slavery. When Yankee soldiers overran Chapel Hill and interacted with Mrs. May Anngady, she noted that the soldiers went looking for valuables and attempted to give her father stolen meat and her father, quoting the commandment against stealing, refused the meat. Some enslaved people refused to steal because they may have been forced to steal for others later on.
Enslaved people created their own parameters around theft and gladly committed acts of “theft” if it meant learning to read to inform the community of activities beyond the plantation. They also gladly committed “theft” if stealing time through hunting and gardening provided the much-needed food. So common was theft, that in most cases it was an act performed by Black people across every class, age, or gender. The young, old, skilled and unskilled, religious and non-religious, male and female were all involved. For an example of theft-click here
As one should come to see, enslaved people had their own system of ethics and morality. This system was often enforced within the slave quarters. Within the quarter, stealing was stealing. Enslaved people who stole from other enslaved people were looked down upon and ostracized as a form of punishment. As the slave proverb goes, “Jay-Bird don’t rob his own nest.” In some quarters, when the accused had to hold a Bible or sieve on a string without its turning, he was thought to be guilty. Slaveholders frequently remarked on the sense of community in the quarters; they reported that enslaved people usually shared their few goods and rarely stole from each other—” The strong helped the weak.”
Enslaved people or the slave community carefully situated into their culture a way to combat disadvantages to being a slave. Stealing was an act, which was perceived by some as a way to “redistribute wealth” and a persevere of self. As a community, theft was often perceived as an act that could not be discussed—it was under the provision of silence. Even those who did not participate in taking or stealing knew to keep quiet about such events. Silence helped to maintain solidarity. Enslaved people who stole from slaveholders and other unfriendly whites were not shamed in the black community. The “right” theft weakened neither the morality nor the dignity of an enslaved.
Charles Colcock Jones had this to say about the no-snitching code of enslaved people:
"The Negroes are scrupulous on one point; they make common cause, as servants, in concealing their faults from their owners. Inquiry elicits no information; no one feels at liberty to disclose the transgressor; all are profoundly ignorant; the matter assumes the sacredness of a "professional secret:" for they remember that they may hereafter require the same concealment of their own transgressions from their fellow servants, and if they tell upon them now, they may have the like favor returned them; besides, in the meanwhile, having their names cast out as evil from among their brethren, and being subjected to scorn, and perhaps personal violence or pecuniary injury.
Fredrick Douglass had this to say on theft and the expectations of a slave to society:
"It was necessary that the right to steal from others should be established; and this could only rest upon a wider range of generalization than that which supposed the right to steal from my master. It was some time before I arrived at this clear right. To give some idea of my train of reasoning, I will state the case as I laid it out in my mind. "I am," I thought, "not only the slave of Master Thomas, but I am the slave of society at large. Society at large has bound itself, in form and in fact, to assist Master Thomas in robbing me of my rightful liberty, and of the just reward of my labor; therefore, whatever rights I have against Master Thomas I have equally against those confederated with him in robbing me of liberty.
As society has marked me out as privileged plunder, on the principle of self-preservation, I am justified in plundering in turn. Since each slave belongs to all, all must therefore belong to each." I reasoned further, that within the bounds of his just earnings the slave was fully justified in helping himself to the gold and silver, and the best apparel of his master, or that of any other slave-holder; and that such taking was not stealing, in any just sense of the word."