Narrative and Writings of Andrew Jackson, of Kentucky: Containing an Account of His Birth, and Twenty-Six Years of His Life While a Slave; His Escape; Five Years of Freedom, Together with Anecdotes Relating to Slavery; Journal of One Year's Travels; Sketc

IN presenting the following brief narrative to the public, I do not expect to startle them with a long history of tortures, starvation, and maiming, as many less fortunate ones of my race might do. It was not my unhappy lot ever to be very severely whipped--nor were that necessary to make me impatient to be free. If there is a peculiarity in my case, it is the fact that, although not a slave even under the laws of slavery, yet I was held and treated as a slave, and to the day of my death, should have remained thus--subject to its changes and hard ships, had not a kind Providence favored my efforts to gain my liberty by flight.