Frederick Douglass

I was now living in a new world, and was wide awake to its advantages.

This winter past, and I was up with the times—got plenty of work—got well paid for it—and felt that I had not done a foolish thing to leave Master Hugh and Master Thomas.

That day’s work I considered the real starting point of something like a new existence.

I can work for a living; I am not afraid of work; I have no Master Hugh to rob me of my earnings”—placed me in a state of independence, beyond seeking friendship or support of any man.

I was now my own master—a tremendous fact—and the rapturous excitement with which I seized the job, may not easily be understood, except by some one with an experience like mine.

The reason is, that the colored people in that city are educated up to the point of fighting for their freedom, as well as speaking for it.

The colored people themselves were of the best metal, and would fight for liberty to the death.

No colored man is really free in a slaveholding state.

I now find that I could have landed in no part of the United States, where I should have found a more striking and gratifying contrast to the condition of the free people of color in Baltimore, than I found here in New Bedford.

On the wharves, I saw industry without bustle, labor without noise, and heavy toil without the whip.

The explanation was soon furnished, in the superiority of mind over simple brute force.

Judge, then, of my amazement and joy, when I found—as I did find—the very laboring population of New Bedford living in better houses, more elegantly furnished—surrounded by more comfort and refinement—than a majority of the slaveholders on…