Historical voices

The smiles of my mistress could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom.

The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me.

I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated…

It was slavery—not its mere incidents—that I hated.

My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from the consideration of my being a slave at all.

She aimed to keep me ignorant; and I resolved to know, although knowledge only increased my discontent.

Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies.

The more beautiful and charming were the smiles of nature, the more horrible and desolate was my condition.

Liberty! the inestimable birthright of every man, had, for me, converted every object into an asserter of this great right.

Once awakened by the silver trump of knowledge, my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness.

I have often wished myself a beast, or a bird—anything, rather than a slave.

This knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful dragon that was ready to pounce upon me, but it opened no way for my escape.

As I writhed under the sting and torment of this knowledge, I almost envied my fellow slaves their stupid contentment.

Knowledge had come; light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good, kind master, he was the author of my situation.

Slaveholders,” thought I, “are only a band of successful robbers, who left their homes and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and reducing my people to slavery.” I loathed them as the meanest and the most wicked of men.

I have met many religious colored people, at the south, who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery, and to wear their chains with meekness and humility.

With a book of this kind in my hand, my own human nature, and the facts of my experience, to help me, I was equal to a contest with the religious advocates of slavery, whether among the whites or among the colored people, for blindness, in…

I had now penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man.

If I ever wavered under the consideration, that the Almighty, in some way, ordained slavery, and willed my enslavement for his own glory, I wavered no longer.

The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts, which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of utterance.

When I was about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learning to read, every increase of knowledge, especially respecting the FREE STATES, added something to the almost intolerable burden of the thought—I AM A SLAVE FOR LIFE.

Of all consciences let me have those to deal with which have not been bewildered by the cares of life.

Have I not as good a right to be free as you have?” Words like these, I observed, always troubled them; and I had no small satisfaction in wringing from the boys, occasionally, that fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery, that springs…

For a single biscuit, any of my hungry little comrades would give me a lesson more valuable to me than bread.