Historical voices

The fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof, to my mind, that he believed me entitled to the whole of them.

I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my toil into the purse of my master.

Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.

Let him be left to feel his way in the dark; let darkness commensurate with his crime hover over him; and let him feel that at every step he takes, in pursuit of the flying bondman, he is running the frightful risk of having his hot brains…

I would leave him to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormentors, ever ready to snatch from his infernal grasp his trembling prey.

I would keep the merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave.

We owe something to the slave south of the line as well as to those north of it; and in aiding the latter on their way to freedom, we should be careful to do nothing which would be likely to hinder the former from escaping from slavery.

They stimulate him to greater watchfulness, and enhance his power to capture his slave.

They do nothing towards enlightening the slave, whilst they do much towards enlightening the master.

I, however, can see very little good resulting from such a course, either to themselves or the slaves escaping; while, upon the other hand, I see and feel assured that those open declarations are a positive evil to the slaves remaining…

I honor those good men and women for their noble daring, and applaud them for willingly subjecting themselves to bloody persecution, by openly avowing their participation in the escape of slaves.

I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations which evil-minded men might suggest, rather than exculpate myself, and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother slave might clear himself of the…

The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same.

Not because he earned it,—not because he had any hand in earning it,—not because I owed it to him,—nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up.

I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh.

He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.

It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.

I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one.

I have observed this in my experience of slavery,—that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.

Such was, and such remains, the state of things in the Christian city of Baltimore.

It required a degree of courage unknown to them to do so; for just at that time, the slightest manifestation of humanity toward a colored person was denounced as abolitionism, and that name subjected its bearer to frightful liabilities.

Of course, it was impossible to get any white man to volunteer his testimony in my behalf, and against the white young men.

If I had been killed in the presence of a thousand colored people, their testimony combined would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers.

It was almost compensation for my suffering to witness, once more, a manifestation of kindness from this, my once affectionate old mistress.