An American Slave.
Los siguientes párrafos, en inglés, pertenecen a “Narrative
of the Life of Frederick
Douglass. An American Slave”, que puede ser bajado desde The Project Gutenberg, sin pagar un
céntimo, hermano. Este libro relata la historia de un esclavo negro que logra escapar de sus amos y es capaz de contar
lo que vivió. La historia es cruel en la descripción de los procedimientos para castigar a aquellos que querían escapar.
En vocabulario
encontramos blunt y tidings.
She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise…
Párrafos
I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about
twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate
knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By
far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know
of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their
slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell
of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time,
harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information
concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The
white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be
deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master
concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and
impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give
makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to
this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen
years old.
My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the
daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother
was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather.
My father was a white man. He was admitted to be
such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered
that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know
nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were
separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of
Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very
early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its
mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance
off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field
labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder
the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for
the child. This is the inevitable result.
I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more
than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in
duration, and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve
miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling
the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the
penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special
permission from his or her master to the contrary—a permission which they
seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a
kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day.
She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep,
but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place
between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and
with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old,
on one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not allowed to be present
during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew
any thing about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her
soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should
have probably felt at the death of a stranger.
Called thus suddenly away, she left me without the
slightest intimation of who my father was. The whisper that my master was my
father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little
consequence to my purpose whilst the fact remains, in all its glaring
odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all
cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously
to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked
desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the
slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of
master and father. . . (Excerpts from Narrative of the Life
of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave, chapter 1)
Vocabulary
Blunt: to
make a feeling less strong:
My recent bad experience has blunted
my enthusiasm for travel.
Tidings:
news:
… tidings of great joy.
Spanish version
Narrativa
de la Vida de Frederick Douglass
From around the web
This video from The
African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross describes the life of Frederick Douglass and his rise to
prominence in the abolitionist community.
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Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,
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