Frederick Douglass

My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from the consideration of my being a slave at all.

She aimed to keep me ignorant; and I resolved to know, although knowledge only increased my discontent.

Nature had made us friends; slavery made us enemies.

The more beautiful and charming were the smiles of nature, the more horrible and desolate was my condition.

Liberty! the inestimable birthright of every man, had, for me, converted every object into an asserter of this great right.

Once awakened by the silver trump of knowledge, my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness.

I have often wished myself a beast, or a bird—anything, rather than a slave.

This knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful dragon that was ready to pounce upon me, but it opened no way for my escape.

As I writhed under the sting and torment of this knowledge, I almost envied my fellow slaves their stupid contentment.

Knowledge had come; light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good, kind master, he was the author of my situation.

Slaveholders,” thought I, “are only a band of successful robbers, who left their homes and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and reducing my people to slavery.” I loathed them as the meanest and the most wicked of men.

I have met many religious colored people, at the south, who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery, and to wear their chains with meekness and humility.