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Founders, statesmen and world leaders — cited from their collected works.
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Covey—undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is—was the turning point in my “life as a slave.” It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own…
Whence came the daring spirit necessary to grapple with a man who, eight-and-forty hours before, could, with his slightest word have made me tremble like a leaf in a storm, I do not know; at any rate, I was resolved to fight, and, what was…
I now forgot my roots, and remembered my pledge to stand up in my own defense.
My religious views on the subject of resisting my master, had suffered a serious shock, by the savage persecution to which I had been subjected, and my hands were no longer tied by my religion.
He had more respect for the day than for the man, for whom the day was mercifully given; for while he would cut and slash my body during the week, he would not hesitate, on Sunday, to teach me the value of my soul, or the way of life and…
His religion hindered him from breaking the Sabbath, but not from breaking my skin.
I saw in Sandy too deep an insight into human nature, with all his superstition, not to have some respect for his advice; and perhaps, too, a slight gleam or shadow of his superstition had fallen upon me.
He had been to me the good Samaritan, and had, almost providentially, found me, and helped me when I could not help myself; how did I know but that the hand of the Lord was in it?
I had a positive aversion to all pretenders to “divination.” It was beneath one of my intelligence to countenance such dealings with the devil, as this power implied.
The supper was soon ready, and though I have feasted since, with honorables, lord mayors and aldermen, over the sea, my supper on ash cake and cold water, with Sandy, was the meal, of all my life, most sweet to my taste, and now most vivid…
I saw Jim ironed, in the cart, to be carried to Easton for sale—pinioned like a yearling for the slaughter.
Sandy’s wife was not behind him in kindness—both seemed to esteem it a privilege to succor me; for, although I was hated by Covey and by my master, I was loved by the colored people, because they thought I was hated for my knowledge, and…
That day, in the woods, I would have exchanged my manhood for the brutehood of an ox.
What had I done, what had my parents done, that such a life as this should be mine?
I am in the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence; hid from all human eyes; shut in with nature and nature’s God, and absent from all human contrivances.
My master, who I did not venture to hope would protect me as a man, had even now refused to protect me as his property; and had cast me back, covered with reproaches and bruises, into the hands of a stranger to that mercy which was the…
Sleep itself does not always come to the relief of the weary in body, and the broken in spirit; especially when past troubles only foreshadow coming disasters.
The charge of laziness against the slave is ever on their lips, and is the standing apology for every species of cruelty and brutality.
I say I have no doubt of this; the reason is, that there are not, under the whole heavens, a set of men who cultivate such an intense dread of labor as do the slaveholders.
The word of the slave, against this presumption, is generally treated as impudence, worthy of punishment.
The guilt of a slave is always, and everywhere, presumed; and the innocence of the slaveholder or the slave employer, is always asserted.
I distinctly saw his human nature asserting its conviction against the slave system, which made cases like mine possible; but, as I have said, humanity fell before the systematic tyranny of slavery.
I had jumped from a sinking ship into the sea; I had fled from the tiger to something worse.
