Historical voices

Master Thomas was one of the many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the very charitable purpose of taking care of them.

He could not come among us without betraying his sympathy for us, and, stupid as we were, we had the sagacity to see it.

They used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he stuffed them.

Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.

If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before.

It neither made him to be humane to his slaves, nor to emancipate them.

I indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane.

He was a slaveholder without the ability to hold slaves.

He possessed all the disposition to deceive, but wanted the power.

In all things noble which he attempted, his own meanness shone most conspicuous.

At times, he spoke to his slaves with the firmness of Napoleon and the fury of a demon; at other times, he might well be mistaken for an inquirer who had lost his way.

He came into possession of all his slaves by marriage; and of all men, adopted slaveholders are the worst.

The leading trait in his character was meanness; and if there were any other element in his nature, it was made subject to this.

This we did by begging and stealing, whichever came handy in the time of need, the one being considered as legitimate as the other.

Not to give a slave enough to eat, is regarded as the most aggravated development of meanness even among slaveholders.

He was to me a new master, and I to him a new slave.

The influence of brandy upon him, and of slavery upon her, had effected a disastrous change in the characters of both; so that, as far as they were concerned, I thought I had little to lose by the change.

Will not a righteous God visit for these things?

If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother.

Now all the property of my old master, slaves included, was in the hands of strangers,—strangers who had had nothing to do with accumulating it.

They were in very deed men and women of sorrow, and acquainted with grief.

A single word from the white men was enough—against all our wishes, prayers, and entreaties—to sunder forever the dearest friends, dearest kindred, and strongest ties known to human beings.

We had no more voice in that decision than the brutes among whom we were ranked.

At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder.