Howard Henriques Smith

"Truth Stranger than Fiction or A Page From My Life"
by Howard Henriques Smith

"I was born a slave in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1859, though my mother was a native of Virginia, my father a native of Santiago, Cuba. He was captured in Florida, being then a sailor on board a Spanish brig which lay off the coast. In those days a Negro could not walk the streets unless he could tell who owned him. This my father failed to do, as he knew nothing about our slavery laws. He was whipped and sold into Mississippi by the Ku-Klux men.

"In 1853 my mother was owned by Edwin Jolly, a wealthy planter in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. She was then his only daughter's maid. At the time the war was being discussed throughout the South by prominent Southerners. In dread of it my mother was transported to Mississippi, in care of Robert Vaughan, thinking that by sending her out there she would not get her freedom, and the Yankees would not find her. Mr. Vaughan bought my father for my mother, as she fancied him, and they were married by their master.

My father's real name was Howard Henriques Radazo, but his first master changed it to Howard Henriques Smith. Since then the name of Smith has always been used in our family. Smith was the name of my father's first master, the man who bought him from the Ku-Klux.

After the war I lost contact with three of my sisters. I left for Philadelphia, there I was placed in a Quaker institution and educated. My brother enlisted in the navy, and remained there ten years. I remained in Philadelphia until I was seventeen then came to New York, as my brother then had left the navy and was employed by the White Star Steamship Company. "Ten years ago today my brother was drowned at the White Star dock, pier 32, North River. We had never heard from mother, yet I never gave up hunting for her, until four years ago, when I found her in Virginia, her birthplace.

Last October I went down and saw my mother. You can imagine her joy after not seeing me for twenty-six years. She thought me long dead.

"There is a great deal more to be told, but I will be as brief as possible. My main object for publishing this story is to find my sisters. I have all three of their names and ages. They all were older than I. I have written many letters to all the colored churches, but they failed to find them. This was my promise to my dear old mother, that I would try and find her children if I could. She is still grieving for them, though they have been lost twenty-six years. She is positive her children are alive, and I think the same and I would like very much to find them if there is any possibility of doing so. Possibly they have all changed their names. I am very positive that they were not brought to Washington with the army, as I have made particular inquiries at the Freedmen's Bureau. Their names are not among the contrabands (slaves who escaped to the Union lines), recorded there.

"While recalling the adventures of my life, its strange and pathetic incidents, beginning with the ending of slavery, I am impressed by the fact that through valleys of grief I have been brought to green pastures of peace and happiness."

Source: Colored American Magazine (1903 edition)/i>