Historical voices

Yes, they were the legitimate fruit of slavery, and were second in villainy only to the slaveholders themselves who made such a class possible.

As a class, they were hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation.

I felt as if surrounded by a pack of fiends fresh from perdition.

The fact is, I never saw much use of fighting where there was no reasonable probability of whipping anybody.

It is indeed all over with us; we are surely betrayed,” I thought to myself.

I appealed to the pride of my comrades by telling them that if after having solemnly promised to go, as they had done, they now failed to make the attempt, they would in effect brand themselves with cowardice, and might well sit down, fold…

It was too late to look back, and now was the time to go forward.

Any white man, if he pleased, was authorized to stop a man of color on any road, and examine and arrest him.

It is precious both to the pauper and to the prince, to the slave and to his master; and yet I believe there was not one among us who would not rather have been shot down than pass away life in hopeless bondage.

Life is not lightly regarded by men of sane minds.

The life which he has may be lost, and the liberty which he seeks may not be gained.

All that he has is at stake, and even that which he has not is at stake also.

Upon either side we saw grim death, assuming a variety of horrid shapes.

On the one hand stood slavery, a stern reality glaring frightfully upon us, with the blood of millions in its polluted skirts, terrible to behold, greedily devouring our hard earnings and feeding it upon our flesh.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.

The case sometimes, to our excited visions, stood thus: At every gate through which we had to pass we saw a watchman; at every ferry a guard; on every bridge a sentinel, and in every wood a patrol or slave-hunter.

We had heard of Canada, then the only real Canaan of the American bondman, simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter to escape the heat of summer, but not as the home of man.

We knew of no spot this side the ocean where we could be safe.

Then, too, we knew that merely reaching a free state did not free us, that wherever caught we could be returned to slavery.

Slaveholders sought to impress their slaves with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory, and of their own limitless power.

I hated this secresy, but where slavery was powerful, and liberty weak, the latter was driven to concealment or destruction.

Liberty was our aim, and we had now come to think that we had a right to it against every obstacle, even against the lives of our enslavers.

We meant to reach the North, and the North was our Canaan.

It will be seen that the good old rule, “A man is to be held innocent until proved to be guilty,” did not hold good on the slave plantation.