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.
Douglass explains how his master's religious conversion provided a new, perverse justification for his cruelty, replacing his former reliance on personal depravity.
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It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.
I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.