Taking a prospective glance at liberty, I consented
 to marry. The wedding was a great
event in the family. The ceremony took place
in the parlor, in the presence of the family and a
number of guests. Mr. Garland gave me away,
and the pastor, Bishop Hawks, performed the
ceremony, who had solemnized the bridals of Mr.
Gr. s own children. The day was a happy one,
but it faded all too soon. Mr. Keckley let me
speak kindly of his faults proved dissipated, and
a burden instead of a helpmate. More than all,
I learned that he was a slave instead of a free
man, as he represented himself to be. With the
simple explanation that I lived with him eight
years, let charity draw around him the mantle of
silence.

I went to work in earnest to purchase my
freedom, but the years passed, and I was still a
slave. Mr. Garland's family claimed so much of
my attention in fact, I supported them that I
was not able to accumulate anything. In the
mean time Mr. Garland died, and Mr. Burwell, a
Mississippi planter, came to St. Louis to settle
up the estate. He was a kind-hearted man, and
said I should be free, and would afford me every
facility to raise the necessary amount to pay the
price of my liberty. Several schemes were urged
upon me by my friends.

From: "Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House"
by Elizabeth Keckley
www.archive.org