Frederick Douglass

That a field-hand should learn to read in any slave State is remarkable, but the achievements of my mother, considering the place and circumstances, was very extraordinary.

In view of this fact, I am happy to attribute any love of letters I may have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother--a woman who belonged to a race whose mental…

The criminal was always dumb--and no slave was allowed to testify, other than against his brother slave.

There were, of course, no conflicting rights of property, for all the people were the property of one man, and they could themselves own no property.

Slaves knew enough of the Orthodox theology at the time, to consign all bad slaveholders to hell, and they often fancied such persons wishing themselves back again to wield the lash.

Strange and even ridiculous as it may seem, among a people so uncultivated and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found among any people a more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders than is…

While this lad could not associate with ignorance without sharing its shade, he could not give his black playmates his company without giving them his superior intelligence as well.

He could, when it suited him, appear to be literally insensible to the claims of humanity.

A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.

Reason is imprisoned here and passions run wild.

They wielded the lash without any sense of responsibility.

The usual pretext for such crimes was that the slave had offered resistance.