The Escape of Lewis Lee

Lewis Lee was a light-skinned mulatto slave who was born around 1830 in Fairfax County, Virginia. He had been raised as the body servant of an old man he seems to have admired, but when that old man died he passed via inheritance to a family he did not get along with. They hired him out as a hotel waiter, giving him none of the wages he earned. As William Still wrote in his famous 1872 book about the Underground Railroad, one day in 1859 Lee decided that he had enough:

Slavery brought about many radical changes, some in one way and some in another. Lewis Lee was entirely too white for practical purposes. They tried to get him to content himself under the yoke, but he could not see the point. A man by the name of William Watkins, living near Fairfax, Virginia, claimed Lewis, having come by his title through marriage. Title or no title, Lewis thought that he would not serve him for nothing, and that he had been hoodwinked already a great while longer than he should have allowed himself to be. Watkins had managed to keep him in the dark and doing hard work on the no-pay system up to the age of twenty-five. In Lewis' opinion, it was now time to "strike out on his own hook;" he took his last look of Watkins (he was a tall, slim fellow, a farmer, and a hard drinker), and made the first step in the direction of the North. He was sure that he was about as white as anybody else, and that he had as good a right to pass for white as the white folks, so he decided to do so with a high head and a fearless front. Instead of skulking in the woods, in thickets and swamps, under cover of the darkness, he would boldly approach a hotel and call for accommodations, as any other southern gentleman. He had a little money, and he soon discovered that his color was perfectly orthodox. He said that he was "treated first-rate in Washington and Baltimore;" he could recommend both of these cities. But destitute of education, and coming among strangers, he was conscious that the shreds of slavery were still to be seen upon him. He had, moreover, no intention of disowning his origin when once he could feel safe in assuming his true status. So as he was in need of friends and material aid, he sought out the Vigilance Committee, and on close examination they had every reason to believe his story throughout, and gave him the usual benefit.

Notice the resentment at being allowed to keep none of his wages. In the 1830 to 1860 period it was common for such workers to keep part of any money they earned when hired out, which they could spend or save up toward purchasing their freedom, and this question shows up over and over in slave narratives. Abraham Lincoln made it the certerpice of his attack on slavery, which focused on the right of all workers to be paid for their labor.

Lee's owner placed an ad offering $10,000 for his return, but that ad was reprinted in an abolitionist newspaper along with a mocking poem written from Lee's point of view. Two of the seven stanzas:

Can one-fourth of my blood a slave make of me?
One your courts bind you not to respect,
Still, three fourths of my blood declares I am free,
And your claims to my service reject. . . .

You advertised me, let me advertise you,
That “JEHOVAH no attribute hath ,
Can side with oppressors,” His justice is due,
And man-stealers inherit his wrath.

Lee remained a free man in the North. But after the Civil War he settled for a while in Washington, DC, and then in 1870 he returned to Fairfax County and purchased eight acres of the plantation where he had been born, living there for the rest of his life.