My Bondage and My Freedom
unprotected—a degraded victim to the brutal lust of fiendish overseers,
who would pollute, blight, and blast her fair soul—rob her of all
dignity—destroy her virtue, and annihilate in her person all the graces
that adorn the character of virtuous womanhood? I ask, how would you
regard me, if such were my conduct? Oh! the vocabulary of the damned
would not afford a word sufficiently infernal to express your idea of
my God-provoking wickedness. Yet, sir, your treatment of my beloved
sisters is in all essential points precisely like the case I have now
supposed. Damning as would be such a deed on my part, it would be no
more so than that which you have committed against me and my sisters.
I will now bring this letter to a close; you shall hear from me again
unless you let me hear from you. I intend to make use of you as a
weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of
concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening the horror
of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you
as a means of exposing the character of the American church and
clergy—and as a means of bringing this guilty nation, with yourself, to
repentance. In doing this, I entertain no malice toward you personally.
There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and
there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort,
which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege
to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.
I am your fellow-man, but not your slave.
THE NATURE OF SLAVERY. Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,
December 1, 1850
More than twenty years of my life were consumed in a state of slavery.
My childhood was environed by the baneful peculiarities of the slave
system. I grew up to manhood in the presence of this hydra headed
monster—not as a master—not as an idle spectator—not as the guest of
the slaveholder—but as A SLAVE, eating the bread and drinking the cup
of slavery with the most degraded of my brother-bondmen, and sharing
with them all the painful conditions of their wretched lot. In
consideration of these facts, I feel that I have a right to speak, and
to speak _strongly_. Yet, my friends, I feel bound to speak truly.
Goading as have been the cruelties to which I have been
subjected—bitter as have been the trials through which I have
passed—exasperating as have been, and still are, the indignities
offered to my manhood—I find in them no excuse for the slightest
departure from truth in dealing with any branch of this subject.
First of all, I will state, as well as I can, the legal and social
relation of master and slave. A master is one—to speak in the
vocabulary of the southern states—who claims and exercises a right of
property in the person of a fellow-man. This he does with the force of
the law and the sanction of southern religion. The law gives the master
absolute power over the slave. He may work him, flog him, hire him out,
sell him, and, in certain contingencies, _kill_ him, with perfect
impunity. The slave is a human being, divested of all rights—reduced to
the level of a brute—a mere “chattel” in the eye of the law—placed
beyond the circle of human brotherhood—cut off from his kind—his name,
which the “recording angel” may have enrolled in heaven, among the
blest, is impiously inserted in a _master’s ledger_, with horses,
sheep, and swine. In law, the slave has no wife, no children, no
country, and no home. He can own nothing, possess nothing, acquire
nothing, but what must belong to another. To eat the fruit of his own
toil, to clothe his person with the work of his own hands, is
considered stealing. He toils that another may reap the fruit; he is
industrious that another may live in idleness; he eats unbolted meal
that another may eat the bread of fine flour; he labors in chains at
home, under a burning sun and biting lash, that another may ride in
ease and splendor abroad; he lives in ignorance that another may be
educated; he is abused that another may be exalted; he rests his
toil-worn limbs on the cold, damp ground that another may repose on the
softest pillow; he is clad in coarse and tattered raiment that another
may be arrayed in purple and fine linen; he is sheltered only by the
wretched hovel that a master may dwell in a magnificent mansion; and to
this condition he is bound down as by an arm of iron.
From this monstrous relation there springs an unceasing stream of most
revolting cruelties. The very accompaniments of the slave system stamp
it as the offspring of hell itself. To ensure good behavior, the
slaveholder relies on the whip; to induce proper humility, he relies on
the whip; to rebuke what he is pleased to term insolence, he relies on
the whip; to supply the place of wages as an incentive to toil, he
relies on the whip; to bind down the spirit of the slave, to imbrute
and destroy his manhood, he relies on the whip, the chain, the gag, the
thumb-screw, the pillory, the bowie knife the pistol, and the
blood-hound. These are the necessary and unvarying accompaniments of
the system. Wherever slavery is found, these horrid instruments are
also found. Whether on the coast of Africa, among the savage tribes, or
in South Carolina, among the refined and civilized, slavery is the
same, and its accompaniments one and the same. It makes no difference
whether the slaveholder worships the God of the Christians, or is a
follower of Mahomet, he is the minister of the same cruelty, and the
author of the same misery. _Slavery_ is always _slavery;_ always the
same foul, haggard, and damning scourge, whether found in the eastern
or in the western hemisphere.
There is a still deeper shade to be given to this picture. The physical
cruelties are indeed sufficiently harassing and revolting; but they are
as a few grains of sand on the sea shore, or a few drops of water in
the great ocean, compared with the stupendous wrongs which it inflicts
upon the mental, moral, and religious nature of its hapless victims. It
is only when we contemplate the slave as a moral and intellectual
being, that we can adequately comprehend the unparalleled enormity of
slavery, and the intense criminality of the slaveholder. I have said
that the slave was a man. “What a piece of work is man! How noble in
reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving how express and
admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God!
The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!”
The slave is a man, “the image of God,” but “a little lower than the
angels;” possessing a soul, eternal and indestructible; capable of
endless happiness, or immeasurable woe; a creature of hopes and fears,
of affections and passions, of joys and sorrows, and he is endowed with
those mysterious powers by which man soars above the things of time and
sense, and grasps, with undying tenacity, the elevating and sublimely
glorious idea of a God. It is _such_ a being that is smitten and
blasted. The first work of slavery is to mar and deface those
characteristics of its victims which distinguish _men_ from _things_,
and _persons_ from _property_. Its first aim is to destroy all sense of
high moral and religious responsibility. It reduces man to a mere
machine. It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of
God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark,
under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and
sinful fellow-man. As the serpent-charmer of India is compelled to
extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey before he is able to
handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder must strike down the
conscience of the slave before he can obtain the entire mastery over
his victim.
It is, then, the first business of the enslaver of men to blunt,
deaden, and destroy the central principle of human responsibility.
Conscience is, to the individual soul, and to society, what the law of
gravitation is to the universe. It holds society together; it is the
basis of all trust and confidence; it is the pillar of all moral
rectitude. Without it, suspicion would take the place of trust; vice
would be more than a match for virtue; men would prey upon each other,
like the wild beasts of the desert; and earth would become a _hell_.
Nor is slavery more adverse to the conscience than it is to the mind.
This is shown by the fact, that in every state of the American Union,
where slavery exists, except the state of Kentucky, there are laws
absolutely prohibitory of education among the slaves. The crime of
teaching a slave to read is punishable with severe fines and
imprisonment, and, in some instances, with _death itself_.
Nor are the laws respecting this matter a dead letter. Cases may occur
in which they are disregarded, and a few instances may be found where
slaves may have learned to read; but such are isolated cases, and only
prove the rule. The great mass of slaveholders look upon education
among the slaves as utterly subversive of the slave system. I well
remember when my mistress first announced to my master that she had
discovered that I could read. His face colored at once with surprise
and chagrin. He said that “I was ruined, and my value as a slave
destroyed; that a slave should know nothing but to obey his master;
that to give a negro an inch would lead him to take an ell; that having
learned how to read, I would soon want to know how to write; and that
by-and-by I would be running away.” I think my audience will bear
witness to the correctness of this philosophy, and to the literal
fulfillment of this prophecy.
It is perfectly well understood at the south, that to educate a slave
is to make him discontened(sic) with slavery, and to invest him with a
power which shall open to him the treasures of freedom; and since the
object of the slaveholder is to maintain complete authority over his
slave, his constant vigilance is exercised to prevent everything which
militates against, or endangers, the stability of his authority.
Education being among the menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most
dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against.
It is true that we do not often hear of the enforcement of the law,
punishing as a crime the teaching of slaves to read, but this is not
because of a want of disposition to enforce it. The true reason or
explanation of the matter is this: there is the greatest unanimity of
opinion among the white population in the south in favor of the policy
of keeping the slave in ignorance. There is, perhaps, another reason
why the law against education is so seldom violated. The slave is too
poor to be able to offer a temptation sufficiently strong to induce a
white man to violate it; and it is not to be supposed that in a
community where the moral and religious sentiment is in favor of
slavery, many martyrs will be found sacrificing their liberty and lives
by violating those prohibitory enactments.
As a general rule, then, darkness reigns over the abodes of the
enslaved, and “how great is that darkness!”
We are sometimes told of the contentment of the slaves, and are
entertained with vivid pictures of their happiness. We are told that
they often dance and sing; that their masters frequently give them
wherewith to make merry; in fine, that they have little of which to
complain. I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance, and appear
to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that
though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely
to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman. That spirit will rise and
walk abroad, despite of whips and chains, and extract from the cup of
nature occasional drops of joy and gladness. No thanks to the