“She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies.” — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“Could you have seen that mother clinging to her child, when they fastened the irons upon his wrists; could you have heard her heartrending groans, and seen her bloodshot eyes wander wildly from face to face, vainly pleading for mercy;… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Whatsoever ye would that men should do… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.” — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“It seemed as if I were born to bring sorrow on all who befriended me, and that was the bitterest drop in the bitter… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“He grew vexed and asked if poverty and hardships with freedom, were not preferable to our treatment in slavery...No, I will not stay. Let… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“I admit that the black man is inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white men… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“What does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till dark on the plantations? of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“Could you have seen that mother clinging to her child, when they fastened the irons upon his wrists; could you have heard her heartrending… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away” — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
“No, I did not think of him. When a man is hunted like a wild beast he forgets there is a God, a heaven.… — Harriet Jacobs Copy Share Image
