Peter Still: The Kidnapped and the Ransomed

Peter Still: The Kidnapped and the Ransomed. . , While playing with his eight-year-old brother in front of their enslaved mother's "cottage", a six-year-old slave boy named Peter Still and his brother were sold "down South" in 1806 by the owner of Edmondson's Reserve., Peter's subsequent 44-year enslavement in Kentucky and Alabama was extremely difficult. He had a wife and three children, all enslaved in harsh conditions on another plantation, and his beloved brother died., After decades of saving money earned doing extra jobs for White townspeople, Peter purchased his freedom at age 49. He then headed north and found his family, starting with his amazing encounter with his brother William Still in Philadelphia in 1850. After a White abolitionist died trying to rescue Peter's enslaved wife and children left by Peter in Alabama, Peter began a three-year mission to buy and free them. With the help of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Peter finally succeeded in 1854. He also received proceeds from a book about his life authored by Kate Picard, who knew Peter in both the North and Alabama., Picard's book in 1856 about Peter's long odyssey, entitled The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, was republished three times in the 20th century, and is considered one of the greatest American slave narratives.,

"Late in the afternoon of a pleasant summer day, two little boys were playing before the door of their mother's cottage. They were apparently about six or eight years old, and though their faces wore a dusky hue, their hearts were gay, and their laugh rang out clear and free., But as the day wore on they grew weary and with childhood's first impulse, sought their mother. She was not in the house. All there was still and lonely. In one corner stood her bed, covered with a clean blanket, and the baby's cradle was empty by its side. Grandmother's bed, in another corner of the room, was made up nicely, and every article of the simple furniture was in its accustomed place. Where could they all have gone?"

, [Caption:] , The McKiernan plantation in Tuscumbia, Alabama where Peter's family was enslaved, and Peter labored in 1841 for one fear-filled year. Copy of painting (circa 1845) is from McKiernan family.