to the swamps where he eluded the whites for nearly three months. After surrendering, he was brought into court, and answered Not Guilty to the inquiry of the judge. The trial was gone through with.. Nat was convicted and condemned to die on the gallows. He received the sentence with total indifference, but made a prophecy that on the day of his execution unusual occurrences would appear in the heavens; the sun would be darkened and immense clouds would appear, and threatening lightning. Many of the people believed it. The sheriff could find no one willing to cut the rope, but a drunken sot, crazed by liquor, did the act for pay. The day of execution, strange to say, as Nat had prophesied, was one of stormy and gloomy aspect, with terrible thunder, rain and lightning. Nat kept up his courage to the last, and his neck in the noose, not a muscle quivered or a groan was uttered. He was, undoubtedly, a wonderful character. Know ing as he did, the risk he ran, what an immense courage he must have had to undertake this bold adventure. He was thus spoken of by a Mr. Gray, who interviewed him: "It has been said that he was ignorant and cowardly, and his purpose was to murder and rob. It is notorious that he was never known to have a dollar in his life, to swear an oath, or drink a drop of spirits. He can read and write, and for natural intelligence and quick

hess of apprehension is surpassed by few men I have ever seen."*

Avery Watkins, a colored preacher of Rockingham, North Carolina, and grandfather of Rev. R. H. W. Leak, a prominent minister in the A. M. E. Conference of North Carolina, is said to have been hanged in Rockingham, North Carolina, charged with indorsing the Nat Turner Insurrection, because in a private conversation with his family he related to them something of what Nat Turner was doing in Southampton, where he had lately been on a visit to his grandmother, Accord. ing to the account of Mr. W. H. Quick, he was taken by a mob at a camp-meeting, and tried and hung in the same month, in the year 1831.

Madison Washington was the name of a brave slave who, being a part of a cargo of 135 slaves en route to New Orleans from Virginia, when the boat was eight days out organized the slaves, made an onslaught on the officers, took possession of the boat and carried it to Nassau, an English possession, where England gave them protection, refusing to surrender them as "murderers and mutineers to perish on Southern gibbets."

* One author says: Upwards of one hundred slaves were slaughtered in the Southampton Tragedy, many of them in cold blood while walking.in the streets-and about sixty white persons. Some of the alleged conspirators had their noses and ears cut off, the flesh of their cheeks cut out, their jaws broken asunder, and in that condition they were set up as marks to be shot at

The Kindness of Washington in dressing the Captain's wounds and protecting and caring for his wife and children, marked him as a most magnanimous foe. Only one white man of the twelve commanding the ship was killed. He having fired into the slaves came at them with a spike; thereupon he was stabbed by one of Washington's men, who wrenched a bowie-knife from the hands of the Captain. Washington's only wish was, not blood, but freedom, which he gained..

"THE VIRGINIA MAROONS.

The Famous Dismal Swamp, some fifty miles long, extending from Norfolk, Virginia, into North Carolina, was a noted rendezvous for runaway slaves before the civil war. It is estimated that the slave property in this swamp was worth a million and a half dollars. They carried on a secret trade with the Virginia merchants, but any merchant caught fostering these people by trading with them was punished severely by law. The traders who were pursued found shelter among the maroons of the swamp. The chivalry of the Old Dominion never dared venture into this colony, and blood-hounds sent in came out no more. The Dismal Swamp colony continued from generation to generation, defying and outwitting the slave-owners right in the

midst of one of the strongest slave-holding communities in the South.

"THE AMISTAD CAPTIVES."

Fifty-four Africans on board the Spanish slaveschooner "Amistad," under Captain Ramon Ferrer, on June 28, 1839, sailed from Havana, Cuba, for Porto Principe, another place on the island of Cuba, about three hundred miles distant from Havana. The fifty-four slaves were just from Lemboko, their native country in Africa. Joseph Cinquez, son of an African prince, was among them. He was shrewd, brave and intelligent. He looked on with disgust at the cruel treatment given him and his fellowslaves, some being "chained down between the decks-space not more than four feet-by their wrists and ankles; forced to eat rice, sick or well, and whipped upon the slightest provocation." Cinquez witnessed the brutality as long as his noble nature would allow, and when they were about five nights out from Havana, he chose a company of confederates from among his brethren and made an assault on the captain of the boat, and took him and his crew prisoners. Two sailors struck out for land when they found their captain and cook in chains, and left the boat in full possession of the Negroes. The man at the helm (Montes) was ordered to steer

direct for Africa, under pain of death. This he did by day, but at night would make towards the coast of America. Finally, after continual wandering, the vessel was cited off the coast of the United States in August. All the ports were notified, and a number of revenue cutters were dispatched after her. She was finally captured on the 26th of August, 1839, by Lieut. Gidney of the United States Navy, and the "Amistad" and her fifty-four Africans were landed in New London, Connecticut. The two Spaniards found on board the vessel were examined by the United States officials, and the whole number of Africans were bound over to await trial as pirates. They being unable to give bond of course went to prison, but not to stay long. Public sentiment was everywhere aroused in their favor. The anti-slavery friends organized schools among them; the Africans learned rapidly and soon told all the details of the capture of the "Amistad" in English from their own lips without an interpreter. The trial occupied several months, during which they busied themselves in cultivating a garden of fifteen acres in a most skillful and intelligent manner. Their grievances were told all over America, and aroused the sympathies of the people. Finally, the court decided that the "Amistad captives" were not slaves but free

A thrill of joy passed through many an American heart, as well as their own, and when the