It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it in the same space of time for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did for myself in these earliest years of my freedom.
Douglass contrasts his productivity as a free man with his forced labor under a slave-breaker, highlighting the dignity and motivation of working for oneself.
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More from Frederick Douglass
Lincoln was not only a great President, but a GREAT MAN--too great to be small in anything.
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.
Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.
It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.