Table Of ContentFifty Years in Chains;
or, The Life of an American Slave
By Charles Ball
A DocSouth Books Edition
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library
Chapel Hill
2
A DocSouth Books Edition, 2012
ISBN 978-1-4696-0784-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
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CB #3900 Davis Library
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Documenting the American South
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Summary
Charles Ball was born on a tobacco plantation in Calvert County, Mary-
land. The exact date of his birth is not certain, but most scholars agree that
it was some time in 1781. When he was four, his mother and siblings were
sold to another plantation and Ball never saw them again. Ball remained
in Maryland and married Judah, a slave on a neighboring plantation, but
they were separated when he was sold to a slave trader from Georgia. Ball
was bound with 51 other slaves in neck irons, handcuffs and chains and
forced to walk for over a month from Maryland to Columbia, South Caro-
lina. There, he was sold to a cotton plantation owner, and later worked for
the owner’s youngest daughter in Georgia. When his owner died in 1809,
Ball found himself at the mercy of the owner’s sons, whose cruelty was un-
bearable. That year he escaped from slavery and during the span of a year
walked from Georgia to Maryland.
In Maryland, he returned to his wife and children, and at the advice of
his wife’s owners he hired himself out for wages. Although Ball was a fugi-
tive slave, he escaped notice for a long time and managed to save enough
money to buy a farm near Baltimore. Ball’s first wife died in 1816 and two
years later he married again. His life as a self- proclaimed freedman, how-
ever, was precarious, and in 1830 he was captured and returned to slavery.
He escaped again, hiding on a ship to Philadelphia and then returning to
Baltimore. In his absence, his wife and children, who were legally freed
slaves, had been sold into slavery. After learning of his family’s fate, Ball
returned to Pennsylvania to minimize the chance of being recaptured.
Ball’s Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures
of Charles Ball was published in 1836 and written with the help of Isaac
Fischer. Fischer declares in his preface that he has edited the oral narra-
tive Ball had dictated to him to omit any beliefs or feelings Ball may have
expressed about slavery. This declaration of presumably significant editing
has led scholars to debate the authenticity of Ball’s narrative, but most agree
that the narrative represents a true story. The popularity of Ball’s story is
well-documented. Slave narrative scholar William Andrews notes: “Ball’s
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narrative was reprinted often in the decades following its initial publica-
tion; it directly influenced the manner and matter of later fugitive slave
narratives.” Fifty Years In Chains; or, The Life of an American Slave, (1859)
was an abridged and unauthorized reprinted of the earlier Slavery in the
United States. In the narratives, Ball describes his experiences as a slave,
including the uncertainty of slave life and the ways in which the slaves are
forced to suffer harsh and inhumane conditions. In particular, he recounts
the qualities of his various masters, and the ways in which his fortune de-
pended on their temperament.
Works Consulted
Andrews, William L., To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American
Autobiography, 1760-1865, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986;
Garraty, John A. and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography,
vol. 2, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Ripley, C. Peter, et al., eds.,
The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. III: The United States, 1830-1846, Chapel
Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Harris Henderson
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[Title Page Image]
FIFTY YEARS IN
CHAINS;
OR,
THE LIFE OF AN
AMERICAN SLAVE.
“My God! Can such things be!
Hast Thou not said that whatsoe’er is done
Unto thy weakest and thy humblest one,
Is even done to Thee?”— WHITTIER.
NEW-YORK
H. DAYTON, PUBLISHER.
36 HOWARD STREET.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.: - ASHER & COMPANY.
1859.
8
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858, by
H. DAYTON,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
PREFACE.
THE story which follows is true in every particular Responsible citizens of
a neighboring State can vouch for the reality of the narrative. The language
of the slave has not at all times been strictly adhered to, as a half century of
bondage unfitted him for literary work The subject of the story is still a slave
by the laws of this country, and it would not be wise to reveal his name.
