I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness.
In his autobiography, Douglass expresses his astonishment at the Northern misconception that slave singing indicated contentment rather than suffering.
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More from Frederick Douglass
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.