My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
page 52 of 451 (11%)
page 52 of 451 (11%)
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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. |
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