Frederick Douglass

The license allowed appeared to have no other object than to disgust the slaves with their temporary freedom, and to make them as glad to return to their work as they were to leave it.

Everything like rational enjoyment was frowned upon, and only those wild and low sports peculiar to semi-civilized people were encouraged.

It was not from a generous unconcern for the slave’s labor, but from a prudent regard for the slave system.

The slave’s happiness was not the end sought, but the master’s safety.

Ostensibly they were institutions of benevolence designed to mitigate the rigors of slave life, but practically they were a fraud instituted by human selfishness, the better to secure the ends of injustice and oppression.

Thus they became a part and parcel of the gross wrongs and inhumanity of slavery.

These holidays were also sort of conductors or safety-valves, to carry off the explosive elements inseparable from the human mind when reduced to the condition of slavery.

These holidays served the purpose of keeping the minds of the slaves occupied with prospective pleasure within the limits of slavery.

To enslave men successfully and safely it is necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived.

We regarded this time as our own by the grace of our masters, and we therefore used it or abused it as we pleased.

Trained from the cradle up to think and feel that their masters were superior, and invested with a sort of sacredness, there were few who could rise above the control which that sentiment exercised.

Slaves would sometimes fight with each other, and even die at each other’s hands, but there were very few who were not held in awe by a white man.