died before he was seven.
As a child, he wore only a long shirt, and nothing else; no shoes, no pants, no extra clothes for the winter.
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He wrote:
"The children unable to work had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trousers, given to them; their clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts per year. When these failed them, they went naked until the next allowance day."
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He didn't know his birthday, nor the months of the year.
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He wrote:
"I had no knowledge of the days of the month, nor the months of the year." He wrote. "I was kept almost naked - no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing on but a course tow linen shirt, reaching only to my knees...My feet have been so cracked with the frost that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes."
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He slept on a floor, and ate from the same communal bowl as all the hungry he lived alongside.
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He wrote:
"There were no beds given...unless one course blanket be considered such, and none but the men and women had these...old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down, side by side, on one common bed, -the cold, damp floor. Our food was coarse corn meal. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and some with spoons. He that ate fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied."
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He saw many horrors, and even, before the tender age of eight, saw man at his cruelest.
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He wrote:
"I have often been awakened at the dawn of the day by the most heart-rending of an own aunt of mine, whom he [one Mr. Plummer, described as "a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster"] used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back until she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers for his gory victim, semed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped hardest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overvcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate...through which I would pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it."
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But, somehow, he went on, and described his feelings while witnessing another terrible whipping.
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He wrote:
"I was so terrified and horror stricken by the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out til long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen anything like it before. I had lived with my grandmother...I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred..."
When he was seven or eight, he learned that he would be moving, from Tuckahoe, Maryland, to Baltimore. His joy almost overwhelmed him.
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He wrote:
"I recieved this information about three days before my departure. They were three of the happiest days I ever enjoyed. I spent the most part of all these three days in the creek, washing...and preparing myself for my departure.
"The pride of appearance which this would indicate was not my own. I spent the time in washing not so much because I wished to, but because Mrs. Lucretia had told me that I must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees before I could go to Baltimore; for the people in Baltimore were very cleanly, and would laugh at me if I looked dirty. Besides, she was going to give me a pair of trousers, which I should not put on unless I got all the dirt off me. The thought of owning a pair of trousers was great indeed! It was almost a sufficient motive, not only to take off what would be called by pig-drovers the mange, but the skin itself. I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time with the hope of reward."
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And so, the words of an articulate man, looking back, to when he once was an illiterate child, a witness to man's brutality towards his fellow man. These were the conditions he was borne into; his reality; these were the odds he had stacked against him. The idea that he could learn to read, to learn to write, up to this point, never occurred to him.
Then, one day, soon after he arrived in Baltimore, something magical happened.
Someone decided to teach him his letters.
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He wrote:
"Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me my A, B, C's. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave how to read. To use his own words further, he said, "If you give a n____r an inch, he will take an ell. A n____r should know nothing but to obey his master - to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best n____r in the world.
"'Now," said he, "if you teach that n____r [speaking of myself] how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy."
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---What a wondrous and happy moment! If only Mr Auld knew to whom he was referring! O! How the wheels turned! If only Mrs. Auld knew to whom she had given those first letters! If only they knew! Perhaps they would prostrate themselves before him, and beg of him kind words on their behalf, so that they, throughout time, would be remembered kindly!
Alas, they did not know to whom they were referring, and to whom they were contributing, and whom, now armed with words, would one day rise up to great heights, and articulate, and give voice to, with pen and ink, as well as through public appearances, what was wrong in America, and that his words would be taken up, and carried across a nation, and would ring, truer than the Liberty Bell, and travel the world over, and would, in his lifetime, be identified by our President Abraham Lincoln as An Equal.
He knew that learning to read and write were important; he knew he had a lot to say, and that what he had to say was important. Thus, when he learned, he wrote this:
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"From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom...Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very manner with which he spoke, to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible, of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurances that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That to him which was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be dilligently sought; and the argument which he most warmly urged, against my learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledge the benefit of both."
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He did not understand the contrary behavior of his fellow slaves.
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He wrote:
"Slaves, when inquired as to the condition and character of their masters, almost univer
sally say that they are contented, and that many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd's slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd's slaves would boast of his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast of his ability to Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end with a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man's slave was to be a disgrace, indeed."
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He saw, firsthand, the psychological control the institution of slavery held in place, like an iron grip, over an entire people; an entire nation.
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He wrote:
"Slaveholders have been known to send in spies among their slaves, to ascertain their views and feelings in regards to their condition. The frequency