How she acquired this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning.

I can, therefore, fondly and proudly ascribe to her an earnest love of knowledge.

That a "field hand" should learn to read, in any slave state, is remarkable; but the achievement of my mother, considering the place, was very extraordinary; and, in view of that fact, I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got--despite of prejudices only too much credit, _not_ to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated _mother_--a woman, who belonged to a race{45 PENALTY FOR HAVING A WHITE FATHER} whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.
Summoned away to her account, with the impassable gulf of slavery between us during her entire illness, my mother died without leaving me a single intimation of _who_ my father was.

There was a whisper, that my master was my father; yet it was only a whisper, and I cannot say that I ever gave it credence.

Indeed, I now have reason to think he was not; nevertheless, the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that, by the laws of slavery, children, in all cases, are reduced to the condition of their mothers.