Some poor creatures have been so brutalized by the lash that they will sneak out of the way to give their masters free access to their wives and daughters.

What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North.

Again and again I revolved in my mind how all this would end. There was no hope that the doctor would consent to sell me on any terms. He had an iron will, and was determined to keep me, and to conquer me. My lover was an intelligent and religious man. Even if he could have obtained permission to marry me while I was a slave, the marriage would give him no power to protect me from my master.

Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it “the atmosphere of hell;” and I believe it is so.

We became mutually attached, and he proposed to marry me. I loved him with all the ardor of a young girl’s first love. But when I reflected that I was a slave, and that the laws gave no sanction to the marriage of such, my heart sank within me. My lover wanted to buy me; but I knew that Dr. Flint was too willful and arbitrary a man to consent to that arrangement.

a free born man.

Where laughter is not mirth; nor thought the mind; Nor words a language; nor e’en men mankind. Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows, And each is tortured in his separate hell.

Why does the slave ever love?

It was my ignorance of that mistress that gave rise to such extravagant imaginings.

my bare feet tingled

I told her it was my new shoes. “Take them off,” said she; “and if you put them on again, I’ll throw them into the fire.”

If there was one pure, sunny spot for me, I believed it to be in Benjamin’s heart

O, how I despised him! I thought how glad I should be, if some day when he walked the earth, it would open and swallow him up, and disencumber the world of a plague.

My grandmother had, as much as possible, been a mother to her orphan grandchildren.

THE SLAVE WHO DARED TO FEEL LIKE A MAN.

Some masters give them a good dinner under the trees.

I once saw a young slave girl dying soon after the birth of a child nearly white. In her agony she cried out, “O Lord, come and take me!” Her mistress stood by, and mocked at her like an incarnate .fiend. “You suffer, do you?” she exclaimed. “I am glad of it. You deserve it all, and more too.”

it was a crime for a slave to tell who was the father of her child.

My grandmother saw through his hypocrisy; she understood very well that he was ashamed of the job. She was a very spirited woman, and if he was base enough to sell her, when her mistress intended she should be free, she was determined the public should know it.

On the appointed day, the customary advertisement was posted up, proclaiming that there would be a “public sale of negroes, horses, &c. ”

She became an indispensable personage in the household, officiating in all capacities, from cook and wet nurse to seamstress. She was much praised for her cooking; and her nice crackers became so famous in the neighborhood that many people were desirous of obtaining them. In consequence of numerous requests of this kind, she asked permission of her mistress to bake crackers at night, after all the household work was done; and she obtained leave to do it, provided she would clothe herself and her children from the profits.

She was a little girl when she was captured and sold to the keeper of a large hotel. I have often heard her tell how hard she fared during childhood.

my maternal grandmother, who was a remarkable woman in many respects. She was the daughter of a planter in South Carolina, who, at his death, left her mother and his three children free, with money to go to St. Augustine, where they had relatives.

was a piece of merchandise

comfortable home

allowed to work

but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.

reared in Slavery

this narrative is no fiction.

indecorum

I have revised her manuscript

personally

stir

Abraham Lincoln reportedly called Stowe ‘the little lady who made this great war.’”

A work shouldn’t be considered worthy of canonization in American Literature because of its ambiguity or complexity, but for the magnitude of impact that it made on America as a whole.

but because of its sheer impact on a society

“Do what you want, screw everything else.” Yes, all that self-important pandering could be reduced to seven crude words- sorry Emerson.

a beach-read

First off, let me use this platform to argue my case for Captain Underpants worthy place in the canon of American Literature. JUST KIDDING.

Seriously, Madison, cut your losses and stay in Canada where there’s poutine and Tim Hortons.

o support the slave trade

abolitionist narrative.

We see a dubious nature to how the slaves in “Benito Cereno” behave which clue us into the intentions of the “bad guys” (in quotes because point of view matters, but that’s a story for another time) through the entity that is Babo, “But the good conduct of Babo, hardly more than the ill-behavior of others, seemed to withdraw the half-lunatic Don Benito from his cloudy languor” (Melville 2?). We get inklings of this sense of unease.

Comparing the two, I can easily see how Melville uses a sense of dramatic irony to keep the reader in tow with the story while also trying to sell a slave narrative. He plays on our understanding of the story as we read it and eventually develops it into something that flips on its head.

Yeah, you heard me.

resently the Spaniard, assisted by his servant, somewhatdiscourteously crossed over from Captain Delano; a procedurewhich, sensibly enough, might have been allowed to pass for idlecaprice of ill-humour, had not master and man, lingering round thecorner of the elevated skylight, begun whispering together in lowvoices

“Those old men there, shaking their pows from their pulpits,”continued Captain Delano, pointing to the oakum-pickers, “seem toact the part of old dominies

At these words the Spaniard turned upon the American one of hissudden, staring, half-lunatic looks; then, relapsing into his torpor,answered, “Doubtless, doubtless, Senor.” Is it, thought CaptainDelano, that this helpless man is one of those paper captains I’veknown, who by policy wink at what by power they cannot putdown? I know no sadder sight than a commander who has little ofcommand but the name.

But when, facing about, he saw the whole file, like so many organ-grinders, still stupidly intent on their work, unmindful ofeverything beside, he could not but smile at his late fidgetingpanic

Captain Delano having heard out his story, not onlyengaged, as in the first place, to see Don Benito and his peoplesupplied in their immediate bodily needs, but, also, now furtherpromised to assist him in procuring a large permanent supply ofwater

theAmerican could not but impute at least part of the detentions bothto clumsy seamanship and faulty navigation. Eyeing Don Benito’ssmall, yellow hands, he easily inferred that the young captain hadnot got into command at the hawse-hole but the cabin-window,and if so, why wonder at incompetence, in youth, sickness, andaristocracy united? Such was his democratic conclusion.

deprecatory air

The scene was heightened by the contrast in dress, denoting theirrelative positions. The Spaniard wore a loose Chili jacket of darkvelvet; white small clothes and stockings, with silver buckles at theknee and instep; a high-crowned sombrero, of fine grass; a slendersword, silver mounted, hung from a knot in his sash; the last beingan almost invariable adjunct, more for utility than ornament, of aSouth American gentleman’s dress to this hour.

“Faithful fellow!” cried Captain Delano.

sour and gloomy

Marking the noisy indocility of the blacks in general, as well aswhat seemed the sullen inefficiency of the whites, it was notwithout humane satisfaction that Captain Delano witnessed thesteady good conduct of Babo.

7But as if not unwilling to let nature make known her own caseamong his suffering charge, or else in despair of restraining it forthe time, the Spanish captain, a gentlemanly, reserved-looking, andrather young man to a stranger’s eye, dressed with singularrichness

ight have seemed unusual; especially theconspicuous figures of four elderly grizzled Negroes, their headslike black, doddered willow tops

5Whether the ship had a figure-head, or only a plain beak, was notquite certain, owing to canvas wrapped about that part, either toprotect it while undergoing a refurbishing, or else decently to hideits decay.

ery large, and, in itstime, a very fine vessel, such as in those days were at intervalsencountered along that main; sometimes superseded Acapulcotreasure-ships, or retired frigates of the Spanish king’s navy,which, like superannuated Italian palaces, still, under a decline ofmasters, preserved signs of former state

a Spanish merchantmanof the first class; carrying Negro slaves, amongst other valuablefreight, from one colonial port to another.

hip-load of monks was before him

opposition of his mate

It might have been but a deception of the vapours, but, the longerthe stranger was watched, the more singular appeared hermanoeuvres.

Captain Delano continued to watch her

her

nd the sort of stories, at that day, associated with those seas,Captain Delano’s surprise might have deepened into someuneasiness had he not been a person of a singularly undistrustfulgood nature, not liable, except on extraordinary and repeatedexcitement, and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, anyway involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether, inview of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along witha benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy ofintellectual perception, may be left to the wise to determine.

Shadows present, foreshadowing deepershadows to come.

Everything was muteand calm; everything grey

Ships were then not so plenty in those waters as now

at anchor,

The story of anAfrican slaver

The story of anAfrican slaver,

We’ll get our fairytale ending.

clearly a

male colonialist’s wet dream

It doesn’t even pass the bechdel test!

Winkfield drinks poison to prove his love for Unca and she miraculously revives him with her deep knowledge of North American botany,

All this could be yours for the small price of 29.95 plus state tax!

I know we all love Pocahontas, but let’s imagine authentic Princess Unca barbie dolls lining the shelves of your local Toys R Us.

derided the slowness, and dullness of the English army,

I told them, they had as good knock me in head as starve me to death.

welfare of my husband

what my condition was

she threw a handful of ashes in mine eyes

his master roasted him, and that himself did eat a piece of him, as big as his two fingers, and that he was very good meat.

my master being gone, who seemed to me the best friend that I had of an Indian

would go no further, but turn back again, and said I must go back again with her, and she called her sannup

Bible;

he would sell me to my husband

I desired them that they would carry me to Albany upon one of those horses, and sell me for powder: for so they had sometimes discoursed. I

I asked him whether he would read. He told me he earnestly desired it, I gave him my Bible, and he lighted upon that comfortable Scripture “I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord: the Lord hath chastened me sore yet he hath not given me over to death” (Psalm 118.17-18).

Some of the Indians ran one way, and some another

knitting a pair of white cotton stockings for my mistress;

In this travel, because of my wound, I was somewhat favored in my load; I carried only my knitting work and two quarts of parched meal.

Then they went and showed me where it was, where I saw the ground was newly digged, and there they told me they had buried it.

by my master in this writing, must be understood Quinnapin, who was a Sagamore, and married King Philip’s wife’s sister; not that he first took me, but I was sold to him by another Narragansett Indian, who took me when first I came out of the garrison)

but now the case is changed

six years, and five months old. It

picture of death in my lap

This was the comfort I had from them, miserable comforters are ye all, as he said.

This day there came to me one Robert Pepper (a man belonging to Roxbury) who was taken in Captain Beers’s fight

I then remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time; how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight

cold

. One of the Indians got up upon a horse, and they set me up behind him, with my poor sick babe in my lap.

Christian friend

After this it quickly began to snow, and when night came on, they stopped, and now down I must sit in the snow, by a little fire, and a few boughs behind me, with my sick child in my lap; and calling much for water, being now (through the wound) fallen into a violent fever. My own wound also growing so stiff

ad I not experienced it.

od was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along,

But now, the next morning, I must turn my back upon the town, and travel with them into the vast and desolate wilderness,

Little do many think what is the savageness and brutishness of this barbarous enemy,

the Indians told me they would kill him as he came homeward

disconsolate

hell

black creatures

What, will you love English men still?”

lodge.

with our bodies

Five brethren only remaining, namely Manco Ccapac, and the four sisters,

by his sister

As Manco Ccapac was prudent, he concurred with the opinion of the others that they should secure their object by deceit. They called Ayar Cachi and said to him, "Brother! Know that in Ccapac-tocco we have forgotten the golden vases called tupac-cusi, and certain seeds, and the napa, which is our principal ensign of sovereignty."

Manco Ccapac took with him a bird like a falcon, called indi, which they all worshipped and feared as a sacred, or, as some say, an enchanted thing, for they thought that this bird made Manco Ccapac their lord and obliged the people to follow him. It was thus that Manco Ccapac gave them to understand, and it was always kept in a covered hamper of straw, like a box, with much care. He left it as an heirloom to his son, and the Incas had it down to the time of Inca Yupanqui. In his hand he carried with him a staff of gold, to test the lands which they would come to.

All the native Indians of this land relate and affirm that the Incas Ccapac originated in this way. Six leagues S.S.W. of Cuzco by the road which the Incas made, there is a place called Paccari-tampu, at which there is a hill called Tampu-tocco, meaning "the house of windows." It is certain that in this hill there are three windows, one called "Maras-tocco," the other "Sutic-tocco," while that which is in the middle, between these two, was known as "Ccapac-tocco," which means "the rich window," because they say that it was ornamented with gold and other treasures. From the window called "Maras-tocco" came forth, without parentage, a tribe of Indians called Maras. There are still some of them in Cuzco. From the "Sutic-tocco" came Indians called Tampus, who settled round the same hill, and there are also men of this lineage still in Cuzco. From the chief window of "Ccapac-tocco," came four men and four women, called brethren. These knew no father nor mother, beyond the story they told that they were created and came out of the said window by order of Ticci Viracocha, and they declared that Viracocha created them to be lords. For this reason they took the name of Inca, which is the same as lord. They took "Ccapac" as an additional name because they came out of the window "Ccapac-tocco," which means "rich," although afterwards they used this term to denote the chief lord over many.

They said that they were the sons of Viracocha Pachayachachi, the Creator, and that they had come forth out of certain windows to rule the rest of the people. As they were fierce, they made the people believe and fear them, and hold them to be more than men, even worshipping them as gods. Thus they introduced the religion that suited them. The order of the fable they told of their origin was as follows.

Although the tribes all lived in simple liberty without recognising any lord, there were always some ambitious men among them, aspiring for mastery.

In this way they took care to have all their past history investigated, and to have records respecting all kinds of people, so that at this day the Indians generally know and agree respecting details and important events, though, in some things, they hold different opinions on special points.

Before all things it must be understood that the valley of Cuzco is in 13° 15' from the equator on the side of the south pole. In this valley, owing to its being fertile for cultivation, there were three tribes settled from most ancient times, the first called Sauaseras, the second Antasayas, the third Huallas. They settled near each other, although their lands for sowing were distinct, which is the property they valued most in those days and even now. These natives of the valley lived there in peace for many years, cultivating their farms.

Incas, it had no regular government, nor did it have natural lords elected by common consent to govern and rule, and who were respected by the people, so that they were obeyed and received tribute.

This absurd fable of their creation is held by these barbarians and they affirm and believe it as if they had really seen it to happen and come to pass.

Taguapaca

working his miracles and instructing his created beings

Whether it was in one way or the other, all agree that Viracocha was the creator of these people. They have the tradition that he was a man of medium height, white and dressed in a white robe like an alb secured round the waist, and that he carried a staff and a book in his hands.

He ordered that each one should go by a different road, naming the tribes, and ordering them all to go forth and people the country.

take vengeance

Taguapaca disobeyed the commands

to make it more perfect

Taguapaca

For as the natives, though barbarous, give reasons for their very ancient settlement, by recording the flood, there is no necessity for setting aside the Scriptures by quoting authorities to establish this origin. We now come to those who relate the events of the second age after the flood, which is the subject of the next chapter.

When about to depart the men tried to seize them, but they evaded their would-be captors and escaped. The Cañaris, seeing the mistake they had made in molesting those who had done them so much good, became sad and prayed to Viracocha for pardon for their sins, entreating him to let the women come back and give them the accustomed meals. The Creator granted their petition. The women came back and said to the Cañaris--"The Creator has thought it well that we should return to you, lest you should die of hunger." They brought them food.

As the waters increased the mountain kept rising and keeping above them in such a way that it was never covered by the waters of the flood. In this way the two Cañaris escaped. These two, who were brothers, when the waters abated after the flood, began to sow. One day when they had been at work, on returning to their but, they found in it some small loaves of bread, and a jar of chicha, which is the beverage used in this country in place of wine, made of boiled maize. They did not know who had brought it, but they gave thanks to the Creator, eating and drinking of that provision.

They say that it rained 60 days and nights, that it drowned all created things

indignation

He created a dark world without sun, moon or stars. Owing to this creation he was named Viracocha Pachayachachi, which means "Creator of all things." And when he had created the world he formed a race of giants of disproportioned greatness painted and sculptured, to see whether it would be well to make real men of that size. He then created men in his likeness as they are now; and they lived in darkness.

“I don’t ask that,” pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the other’s arm; “I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him for my sake, when I am no longer here.” Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh. “Well,” said he, “I promise.”

I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to “the land of mist and snow;” but I shall kill no albatross, therefore do not be alarmed for my safety.