dwelling as a servant, to attend upon the family. My mistress, aware of my near relationship to her husband, felt humiliated, and often in her anger would punish me severely for no cause whatever. My near approach to the Anglo-Saxon aroused the jealousy and hatred of the overseer, and he flogged me, as he said, to make me know my place. My fellow-slaves hated me because I was whiter than themselves. Thus my complexion was construed into a crime, and I was made to curse my father for the Anglo-Saxon blood that courses through my veins.
"My master raised slaves to supply the southern market, and every year some of my companions were sold to the slave-traders and taken farther south. Husbands were separated from their wives, and children torn from the arms of their agonizing mothers. These outrages were committed by the man whom nature compelled me to look upon as my father. My mother and brothers were sold and taken away from me; still I bore all, and made no attempt to escape, for I yet had near me an only sister, whom I dearly loved. At last, the negro driver attempted to rob my sister of her virtue. She appealed to me for protection. Her innocence, beauty, and tears were enough to stir the stoutest heart. My own, filled with grief and indignation, swelled within me as though it would burst or leap from my bosom. My tears refused to flow: the fever in my brain dried them up. I could stand it no longer. I seized the wretch by the throat, and hurled him to the ground; and with this strong arm I paid him for old and new. The next day I was tried by a jury of slaveholders for the crime of having within me the heart of a man, and protecting my sister
