The very first mental effort that I now remember on my part, was an attempt to solve the mystery—why am I a slave? and with this question my youthful mind was troubled for many days, pressing upon me more heavily at times than others.
From his autobiography, this passage describes his earliest memory of grappling with the injustice of his enslavement.
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I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.
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.