Bondage and Freedom

I'm about done reading My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass. The whippings over minor offenses and murder for "no good reason" occur with uncomfortable frequency. It's no wonder so many people hated slavery. Douglass was born a slave in Tuckahoe, Maryland in 1818. He became a leading abolitionist and women's rights advocate and one of the most influential public speakers of the nineteenth century. I highly recommend this excellent book.

The poem below he says is, "not a bad summary of the palpable injustice and fraud of slavery, giving as it does, to the lazy and idle, the comforts which God designed should be given solely to the honest laborer."

"We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn;
We bake de bread,
Dey gib us de cruss;
We sif de meal,
Dey gib us de huss;
We peal de meat,
Dey giv us de skin,
And dat's de way
Dey takes us in.
We skim de pot,
Dey gib us the liquor,
And say dat's good enough for nigger.
Walk over! walk over!
Tom butter and de fat;
Poor nigger you can't get over dat;
Walk over!

Douglass also writes, "We were, at times, remarkably buoyant, singing hymns and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in their tone as if we had reached a land of freedom and safety."

"O Canaan, sweet Canaan,
I am bound for the land of Canaan,"
I thought I heard them say,
There were lions in the way,
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here.
Run to Jesus - shun the danger
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here."

The North was their Canaan and had a double meaning. "In the lips of some" he writes, "it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits." To others it meant deliverance from the evils and dangers of slavery to a free state.