What is still worse, perhaps, such a child is a constant offense to the wife.

She hates its very presence, and when a slaveholding woman hates, she wants not means to give that hate telling effect.

Women--white women, I mean--are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these _idols_ but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow.

Masters are frequently compelled to sell this class of their slaves, out of deference to the feelings of their white wives; and shocking and scandalous as it may seem for a man to sell his own blood to the traffickers in human flesh, it is often an act of humanity{46} toward the slave-child to be thus removed from his merciless tormentors.
It is not within the scope of the design of my simple story, to comment upon every phase of slavery not within my experience as a slave.
But, I may remark, that, if the lineal descendants of Ham are only to be enslaved, according to the scriptures, slavery in this country will soon become an unscriptural institution; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who--like myself--owe their existence to white fathers, and, most frequently, to their masters, and master's sons.
The slave-woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master.

The thoughtful know the rest.
After what I have now said of the circumstances of my mother, and my relations to her, the reader will not be surprised, nor be disposed to censure me, when I tell but the simple truth, viz: that I received the tidings of her death with no strong emotions of sorrow for her, and with very little regret for myself on account of her loss.