1,063 Quotes About Slavery

But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is. Only by experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations.

I was twenty-one years in that cage of obscene birds. I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.

Apparently, some slaveholders had concerns that their "charity and piety" in sharing the Christian message with enslaved children would result in the loss of unfree labor and income. Such a practice would also disrupt the ideology of white supremacy. It would be harder to maintain the social, economic, and religious superiority of white people if spiritual liberty translated into physical and material liberty for enslaved people as well.

Africans find it hard to forgive us slavery, don't they?" He took my hand and said, "I thought you would have known that. My dear, they can't forgive us, and even more terrible, they can't forgive themselves. They're like the young here in this tragic country [Germany]. They will never forgive their parents for what they did to the Jews, and they can't forgive the Jews for surviving and being a living testament to human bestiality.

There is a much-loved region in the American fantasy where pale white women float eternally under black magnolia trees, and white men with soft hands brush wisps of wisteria from the creamy shoulders of their lady loves. Harmonious black music drifts like perfume through this precious air, and nothing of a threatening nature intrudes.The South I returned to, however, was flesh-real and swollen-belly poor.

To be white in the Caribbean is to have money, power, and the freedom to do anything or nothing - it is, in many cases, to occupy the top rung of society.

The experience of slavery is the bedrock on which Caribbean society has been founded.

Slavery done made a fool out of a lot of folks. Twisted 'em all different kinds of ways. I seen it happen many a time in my day. I expect it'll happen in all our tomorrows, too, for when you slave a person, you slave the one in front and the one behind.

Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!