I have
met many religious colored people, at the south, who are under
the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery, and to
wear their chains with meekness and humility. I could entertain
no such nonsense as this; and I almost lost my patience when I
found any colored man weak enough to believe such stuff.
Nevertheless, the increase of knowledge was attended with bitter,
as well as sweet results. The more I read, the more I was led to
abhor and detest slavery, and my enslavers. "Slaveholders,"
thought I, "are only a band of successful robbers, who left their
homes and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and
reducing my people to slavery." I loathed them as the meanest
and the most wicked of men. As I read, behold! the very
discontent so graphically pre<125 MY EYES OPENED>dicted by Master
Hugh, had already come upon me. I was no longer the light-
hearted, gleesome boy, full of mirth and play, as when I landed
first at Baltimore. Knowledge had come; light had penetrated the
moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the bloody
whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good,
_kind master_, he was the author of my situation.
Pages:
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230