knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the
world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning. I
can, therefore, fondly and proudly ascribe to her an earnest love
of knowledge. That a "field hand" should learn to read, in any
slave state, is remarkable; but the achievement of my mother,
considering the place, was very extraordinary; and, in view of
that fact, I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any
love of letters I possess, and for which I have got--despite of
prejudices only too much credit, _not_ to my admitted Anglo-Saxon
paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and
uncultivated _mother_--a woman, who belonged to a race <45
PENALTY FOR HAVING A WHITE FATHER>whose mental endowments it is,
at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.

Summoned away to her account, with the impassable gulf of slavery
between us during her entire illness, my mother died without
leaving me a single intimation of _who_ my father was. There was
a whisper, that my master was my father; yet it was only a
whisper, and I cannot say that I ever gave it credence. Indeed,
I now have reason to think he was not; nevertheless, the fact
remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that, by the laws of
slavery, children, in all cases, are reduced to the condition of
their mothers. This arrangement admits of the greatest license
to brutal slaveholders, and their profligate sons, brothers,
relations and friends, and gives to the pleasure of sin, the
additional attraction of profit. A whole volume might be written
on this single feature of slavery, as I have observed it.

One might imagine, that the children of such connections, would
fare better, in the hands of their masters, than other slaves.