Henry Bibb's Letters to Albert G Sibley
This page contains transcripts of letters written by Henry Bibb to his former slave owner, Albert G Sibley, and published in Bibb's newspaper, The Voice of the Fugitive, published in Windsor, Canada West.
In these letters, Henry names his mother and siblings and what he knows about their experience as slaves and as emancipated people.
September 23, 1852
In the letter of September 23, 1852, he stated that it has been thirteen years since he last saw Sibley, and that his mother and four of his brothers are free and living with him in Canada.The Voice of the Fugitive, Windsor, Canada, West, September 23 1852
A Letter to my Old Master.
Mr. Albert G. Sibley:
Sir,
It has not been about sixteen years since we saw each other face to face, and at which time you doubtless considered me inferior to yourself, as you the held me as an article of property, and sold me as such; but my mind soon after became insubordinate to the ungodly relation of master and slave; and the work of self-emancipation commenced and I was made free.
I have long felt included to open a correspondence with you upon this subject, but have refrained from doing so, until now, for two reasons; first I knew not your post office address; and secondly you then held in bondage several of my mother's children, of which you robbed her when you left the State of Kentucky in 1836. But as those obstacles are now both removed our of the way, I can venture to address you
For more than twenty year you have been a member of the Methodist. Episcopal Church -- a class leader and an exhorter of that denomination; professing to take the Bible as you standard of christian duty. But sir know ye not that in light of this book, you have been acting the hypocrite all the while! I feel called upon as a christian to call you attention to a few facts with regard to it. But before doing so, I am happy to inform you that my brothers, John, Lewis and Granville, whose legs brought them from you plantation, are now all at my house in Canada, with our dear mother, free and doing well on British soil: so you need not give yourself any trouble about advertising for hem. They have all served you a slave for 20 to 30 years without compensation, and have now commenced to act for themselves. Is this incompatible with the character of a Bible christian? And yet I suppose that you, with your man robbing posse have chased them with your dogs and guns, as if they were sheep-killing wolves upon the huge mountain's brow, for the purpose of re-capturing and dragging them back to a mental graveyard, in the name of law and slaveholding religion. Oh! What harmony there seems to be between those two twin sister; the Fugitive Slave Law and the Methodist E Church - Listen to the language of inspiration: "Feed the hungry, and clothe the naked:" "Break every yoke and let the pressed go free:" "All things, whatsoever ye would that men should do until you, do ye even so unto them, for this is the law and the prophets."
While on the other hand your church sanctions the buying and selling of men, women and children; the robbing men of their wives, and parents of their offspring --the violation of the whole of the decalogue, by permitting the profunation of the sabbath; committing of theft, murder, incest and adultery, which is constantly done by church members holding slaves and form the very essence of slavery. Now Sir, allow me with the greatest deference to your intelligence to inform you that your are miserably deceiving yourself, if you believe that you are in the straight and narrow path to heaven, whilst you are practicing such abominable violation of the plainest precept of religion.
The fellowship of no number of professing christians, however extended nor the solemn baptism and silent toleration of all the Reverend time serving ministers in creation, can make you really a christian, or dispense with the binding force of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as the rule of your life and praicte; and whilst you continue in such an unhallowed course of conduct, your prayers, your solemn fasts and ordinances are an abomination to the Lord, form which he will turn his face away, in disgust, and will not hear or look upon.
I must conclude for the present, but as this subject is fraught with such vital importance to your eternal interest, and as I have once maintained an intimate relation to you, I shall feel bound as a christian to interest myself in calling you attention to it again.
Yours with becoming respect,
HENRY BIBB
Windsor Sept 22, 1832.
November 4, 1852
Henry Bibb in his letter of November 4, 1852 to Albert G Sibley notes that his brother George was a preacher, who preached in the church where Sibley was himself a member and present, and that Sibley later sold George, separating him from his wife and children.
Bibb goes on to describe Sibley's dealings with his mother, Mildred Jackson, her child and Bibb's step-father, who paid money to Sibley for the freedom of Mildred and her child, but died before completing the payments. Robert English offered to pay the balance to procure her freedom, but Sibley refused and told Mildred that she could buy her freedom with two years more labor. After three years he sold her to George Ray of Bedford, KY who emancipated her when she became unable to work and sold her daughter, who had not been located at the time of the letter.
The Voice of the Fugitive, Windsor,Canada, West, November 4, 1852
Letter to my old Maser (sic)
No. 3
Mr. Albert G Sibley:
Sir,
You will perceive that I have not yet done with you; as I promised in my last that if you did not answer soon to the charges brought against you through my letters, that you might expect to hear soon from me again: and as the truth is all against you, silence seems to be your only defense; nevertheless I shall continue my letters for your spiritual good, and the spread of anti slavery truth, unless I shall hear from you by letter. As you are a Methodist class-leader, and you will doubtless understand my meaning, when I inquire after the state of your mind. Have you repented of selling my brother George, from his wife and children, after having set under his preaching over and again and communing with and acknowledging him as a christian brother, in the same church with yourself! A man professing Godliness as you do, who has willfully separated husband and wife, children and parents, and sold a Minister of the Gospel into perpetual bondage, is an open violator of the divine law, and must with repentance, be banished form the presence of his God.
Again I ask how you feel under this charge allow me know to call your attention, to your treatment of my poor mother, soon after the death of her husband. My step-father as you well know was free born, and had labored for several years previous to his death to ransom my mother - you had sold her to him for the sum of $300, $165 of which he had paid you and taken your receipts for the same, previous to his death. But alas - he got seriously injured by an explosion on board of a steamboat, which carried him into a premature grave. Mother had given birth to her youngest child after the better half of the purchase money was paid for he ransom, which entitled the child to it's liberty as well as the mother; and a gentleman by the name of Robert English, kindly offered to pay you the balance of mother and her child's ransom price, which was $185 and allow her a chance to earn the money and pay him back: but you refused to accept the money, and told mother that if she would work on for you as she had done for two years longer that you would set them at liberty. But after she had labored for you faithfully for three years from that date, you then sold her and her youngest child to George Ray of Bedford, KY who kept her toiling over a burning cooking stove, as a chief cook in a public hotel for nearly 6 years before she was released; at the expiration of which. Her constitution was completely broken, so that it was a gain to emancipate her and not a loss to the owner. Her youngest child which was entitled to its freedom was was sold away to a "soul driver," and we know not where he is. And now remember - "that for all these thing the (sic): God will bring you into judgement," You have not only lived upon the unrequited toil of your fellow men, from your cradle up to the present time: but you have willfully destroyed (sic) their social happiness, by forcibly making orphans and widows of those for whom Christ suffered and died on the cross- by withholding from them the word of eternal Life. By enforcing adultery and concubinage among the enslaved and by inflicting stripes, chains, imprisonment and unutterrable suffering upon the children of God.
Again I ask how you feel brother, with all of this guilt resting upon your head as an acceptable xxxx leader in the ME Church south! Be not deceived by the long practice of your church; you have an awful account to render to great Judge of the Universe, slave holding religion is of the devil, and your only chance for sl ovation lies in repentance before God and "faith in our Lord Jesus Christ."
Now if you have any thing to say in reply I should be glad to hear form you, if not I shall continue to preach this way against your slave holding religion, and to hold up the doctrine of repentance.
H. BIBB