Francis Fearn

Francis Fearn published a diary by her unnamed ancestor, a Louisiana refugee who spent time in Texas. The journal, which is problematic given Fearn’s own admission of heavy editing and romanticizing, is online at DocSouth.

Fearn depicts the slaves who were refugeed by her ancestor as uniformly faithful:

My husband’s account of his experience during the hundreds of miles he traveled with his slaves is really most extraordinary. They were often very short of food and had many hardships to endure, but not once did the slaves falter or cease in their vigilant care and consideration of him.

After a long and fatiguing day their only sleeping-place would be on the ground, and those who could would sleep in the wagons, but the negroes never failed to make a comfortable place for him. It is a strange sight to see these trains of wagons and negroes going through the country often with only one member of their master’s family, and not infrequently there would be only a woman who most confidingly intrusted herself to the protection and care of her slaves when escaping from home and seeing safety wherever one could find it. In most cases it was in Texas. (pp. 30-31)