And all this is necessary; it is necessary to resort to these cruelties, in order to _make the slave a slave_, and to _keep him a slave_.

Why, my experience all goes to prove the truth of what you will call a marvelous proposition, that the better you treat a slave, the more you destroy his value _as a slave_, and enhance the probability of his eluding the grasp of the slaveholder; the more kindly you treat him, the more wretched you make him, while you keep him in the condition of a slave.

My experience, I say, confirms the truth of this proposition.
When I was treated exceedingly ill; when my back was being scourged daily; when I was whipped within an inch of my life--_life_ was all I cared for.

"Spare my life," was my continual prayer.

When I was looking for the blow about to be inflicted upon my head, I was not thinking of my liberty; it was my life.