Frederick Douglass

It was something to me that I could share these odors with the winds, even if the meats themselves were under a more stringent monopoly.

There were pride, pomp, and luxury on the one hand, servility, dejection, and misery on the other.

The contrast between the condition of the slaves and that of their masters was marvelously sharp and striking.

There is no kind of work which really requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion than the field work of a slave.

Like tears, they were a relief to aching hearts.

The songs of the slaves represented their sorrows, rather than their joys.

The remark in the olden time was not unfrequently made, that slaves were the most contented and happy laborers in the world, and their dancing and singing were referred to in proof of this alleged fact; but it was a great mistake to…

They breathed the prayer and complaint of souls overflowing with the bitterest anguish.

Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work.

That slave who had the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he might have many hard stripes at first, became while legally a slave virtually a freeman.

The doctrine that submission to violence is the best cure for violence did not hold good as between slaves and overseers.

A look, a word, a gesture, accidental or intentional, never failed to be taken as impudence when he was in the right mood for such an offense.