He was one of those who could torture the slightest look, word, or gesture, on the part of the slave, into impudence, and would treat it accordingly.
Frederick Douglass: “He was one of those who could torture the slightest look, word, or gesture, on the part of the slave, into impudence…”
Editor's note · Context
Douglass describes the cruel nature of overseers who could interpret any minor action by a slave as defiance, illustrating the oppressive environment.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and stamped out by intimidation, is now revived, sought, and defended by powerful allies, and this from no transient sentiment of the moment, but from the permanent laws controlling the…
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.