Thomas Bailey
After all, Fate is only the caprice of conditions; to-day a sunbeam of happiness, to-morrow a night-cloud of gloom; filling one life with the tender bloom of hope, another with the withering blight of despair. This very caprice is the foundation of hope, for, if the life born to adversity did not feel a potent strength within, capable of contending against a hard fate with something of a promise of success, the light of that life would go out in gloom and despair. These lives, which know only a hard condition of existence, are sustained and cheered by that manhood in man which, willing to perform mighty deeds, is also able to endure the cruelty of biting wrongs. He finds his condition his inveterate, bitter, and relentless foe, and takes up arms against that condition. When he battles against the hard surroundings of his birth, no measure can be taken of his endurance and strength. In that war he becomes his own fate, and struggles on, determined to triumph or perish in the effort. If he succeeds, the world calls him a genius or a hero; but if he fails, he was only a trifler or a fool. Success is the measure of effort with humanity, and simply means that a man must accomplish whatever he undertakes.
Let us look for a moment upon the eventful life of a man upon whom Fate seemed only to frown, but who, battling against the enemies of his very birth, at length became master of his fate, and received the plaudits bestowed upon the hero. Go backward, then, in years beyond the birth of our proud Republic, to the first decade of the eighteenth century, and enter one of the homes of England. Then and there Thomas Bailey sprang into being under conditions against which two continents of men afterward arose in arms in order that life might be rendered worth the living. It was a century before the judicial declaration that “a slave cannot breathe the air of England and live,” for human piracy and slavery were yet legalized and encouraged. The tree of liberty had produced no fruit, and under the very conditions of his birth Thomas Bailey found himself in deadly conflict with his surroundings. When a mere child he was kidnapped and taken aboard a vessel then about to sail for America, where slavery and barbarism were yet at a premium. The “home of the free and the asylum of the oppressed” existed as yet only in dreams of the future.
On reaching our present free and hospitable shores, the lad was readily put in the market of human chattels, and sold to a Virginian, the proceeds to be applied to the payment of the child’s fare for his captive transportation. He was then held in bondage by his purchaser until about twenty-one years of age, when he was captured by a warring tribe of Indians, and so escaped from the service of a white robber of labor to that of savages, who vied with the whites in the nefarious traffic in human beings. True, it does not appear that during his first service he suffered any abuse or wrongs beyond what is implied by involuntary service. To rob a man of the fruits of his toil appears severe and heart less enough, and ever was a giant, inhuman wrong. As if this were not enough, a worse fate awaited the captive when once at the mercy of the Indians. By them he was held in the most abject and degrading bondage for several years, during which period he suffered untold abuse and unnumbered tortures. His treatment, besides being that of an abject menial in the service of ignorant and cruel barbarians, was frightful and shocking beyond the power of expression. On one occasion, after a long series of tortures, his hair was all plucked from his head and eyebrows, and such other slow abuses inflicted that he lost the use of his eyes, and suffered such other misfortunes as to render him almost helpless to himself, and largely useless to his tormentors. See him in this abject and pitiable condition, and tell us what could have been the measure of his hope! View him in the hands of a tribe whose rule was to put to death all useless captives, and then predict his ultimate fate! In his seemingly undone condition, if the words were ever justifiable, he might have exclaimed
“Oh, why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn ?"
But just such crises as this sometimes in the history of nations as of men, marks the introduction to a new and better life, by building hope on the ruins of despair. So in this case. The blind captive steals away, inspired by thirst, in search of water, and after wandering about for a time hears the thrilling music of a rippling stream, which he approached, and cooled his parching lips. This done, his fever allayed, he crept aimlessly, perhaps despairingly, away among the bushes which bordered the banks of the friendly stream. At length, in the solitude of nature, beyond sight and hearing of man, his bitterest foe, he threw himself upon the earth, and fell into a soft and soothing slumber, a sleep so kind that it brought him a dream of beauty, because a dream of liberty and strength. In that dream he was no longer blind, for blindness could not look upon its picture of beauties and delights which he held in adoration. But it was a transitory joy, and he awoke to realize that “a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.” He awoke to hear the rustling of bushes, and human voices just beyond his place of hiding. He listened, and learned he was the object of search, and that upon being discovered, being no longer of any particular use, it was the intention to put him to death. Perhaps in his forlorn condition this information was not invested with horror to him. But it was still a terrible awakening from a beautiful dream of liberty and manhood. Again he listened, and heard a squaw observe that in case she found the object of the search, she would claim him as her servant, and spare his life that he might take care of her child. Perhaps he did not realize the kindness of that fate, but it presided, unconscious though he was of the fact. Perhaps he dreaded his life more than his death, and preferred to be discovered, if at all, by those who would end his misery by death, “the poor man’s dearest friend, the kindest and the best.” But it was not so; as it was, the squaw who intended he should live was the first to discover him, and so became the preserver of his life. Taking him to her wigwam, she at once set about the treatment of his eyes, and with that success for which the Indian medical treatment is proverbial. By the kind treatment of his preserver his eyesight was fully restored. During the period of this treatment he had been given charge of the child of his benefactress, until the red-skin child and pale-face man be came almost inseparable companions. This companionship may have been, in fact must have been, something of a joy to the man who found in the child the first human being he had ever known who did not seek to oppress and enslave him. This manner of life continued for some time, finally culminating in a day of general sport and feasting. On this occasion, as was their custom on field days, the Indians gave themselves over to the demoralizing influences of liquor, and became an in toxicated mob. The captive-nurse saw another dream of liberty, but this time in his waking hours. He thought fully upon the matter, and finally resolved to make an effort to realize that dream.
Accordingly, he walked back and forth near the scene of revelry and debauchery, carrying the child in his arms, apparently concerned only about its welfare and happiness. The child was fretful, and the ruse successful, for it was not known by the Indians that the child was being tormented by pinching in order to cause the crying. Thus with his fretful, restless charge, the captive walked back and forth, each time extending his walk away from camp and captors. Finally, thinking himself unnoticed, he started on a wild flight for the nearest fort and that liberty for which he thirsted. The fort was distant several miles, but he knew its whereabouts satisfactorily enough to undertake to find it. With the child still in his arms, he hastened onward, finding presently the Indians were in hot and furious pursuit. To be overtaken was to suffer a horrible death just after his first breath of liberty. It was now a race for life itself, and clinging to the child to prevent the use of arrows by the pursuers, who were now close upon his back, he kept up the race, and reached the fort just as he fell exhausted by his burdened flight. The occupants of the fort favored putting the child to death, but he remonstrated, declaring that as it had saved his life, its own must now be spared. He then restored it to its mother, but for himself declined all invitations to return with the Indians, although their offers were profuse and liberal, and possibly sincere. From that day Thomas Bailey, for the first time a free man, realized his manhood, renounced his savage life, turned his back upon a long period of bondage, and looking about him for a moment was dazzled by the glory of freedom’s sunlight, and stood amazed at the realization of his brightest hope. He, the victim of piracy, slavery, and barbarism; who had bowed his head in despair, crushed in spirit, and, for a time, wrecked in body, stood forth after all an evidence of the tenacity of the life of man when put to the severest test. Turning his face to civilization, he sought the settlement of the whites in Virginia, the scene to him of so much suffering, but now the theatre in which he was to enter upon a new life, presided over by a kinder fate. Measure, if you can, the joy of the tortured slave, when in the enjoyment of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and when, for the first time, he realizes he is master of his fate, and recognizes the divinity of man. Thomas Bailey entered upon a new life, under new conditions, inspired by a new purpose. Reaching the settlement he plunged in active labor, and after a time was married to an estimable lady, reared a large and respectable family, and closed his eventful life surrounded by the blessings of liberty, prosperity, and peace.
From History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883