“See here, now, Mr. Wilson,” said George, coming up and sitting himself determinately down in front of him; “look at me, now. Don’t I sit before you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my face,—look at my hands,—look at my body,” and the young man drew himself up proudly; “why am I not a man, as much as anybody? Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father—one of your Kentucky gentlemen—who didn’t think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I saw my mother put up at sheriff’s sale, with her seven children. They were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas’r, and begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to his horse’s neck, to be carried off to his place.”
In that most potent of speeches George claims a sense of human dignity and condemns the racist logic of slavery enforced by laws that deny him basic rights. He voices his deep personal losses: a broken family, being forcibly taken away from his wife, and his identity becoming a racial epithet that serves as a justification for cruelty. For George, pride and a willingness to escape from such chains, even at significant risk, reflect a refusal of the society’s devaluation of his personhood. This excerpt illustrates the harsh facts of life of the enslaved mixed-race and their bravery to stand up for their rights. That passage is necessary for grasping the thematic matter of identity and injustice, an internal battle of enslaved beings claiming their equal potential against such laws.