[My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass]@TWC D-Link bookMy Bondage and My Freedom CHAPTER XXV 77/171
I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip; the death-like gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman; the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.
Say not that this is a picture of fancy.
You well know that I wear stripes on my back, inflicted by your direction; and that you, while we were brothers in the same church, caused this right hand, with which I am now penning this letter, to be closely tied to my left, and my person dragged, at the pistol's mouth, fifteen miles, from the Bay Side to Easton, to be sold like a beast in the market, for the alleged crime of intending to escape from your possession.
All this, and more, you remember, and know to be perfectly true, not only of yourself, but of nearly all of the slaveholders around you. At this moment, you are probably the guilty holder of at least three of my own dear sisters, and my only brother, in bondage.
These you regard as your property.
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