My Bondage And My Freedom by Frederick Douglass

NEW YEAR'S THOUGHTS AND MEDITATIONS--AGAIN BOUGHT BY FREELAND--NO AMBITION TO BE A SLAVE--KINDNESS NO COMPENSATION FOR SLAVERY--INCIPIENT STEPS TOWARD ESCAPE--CONSIDERATIONS LEADING THERETO--IRRECONCILABLE HOSTILITY TO SLAVERY--SOLEMN VOW TAKEN--PLAN DIVULGED TO THE SLAVES--_Columbian Orator--_SCHEME GAINS FAVOR, DESPITE PRO-SLAVERY PREACHING--DANGER OF DISCOVERY--SKILL OF SLAVEHOLDERS IN READING THE MINDS OF THEIR SLAVES--SUSPICION AND COERCION--HYMNS WITH DOUBLE MEANING--VALUE, IN DOLLARS, OF OUR COMPANY--PRELIMINARY CONSULTATION--PASS-WORD--CONFLICTS OF HOPE AND FEAR--DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME--IGNORANCE OF GEOGRAPHY--SURVEY OF IMAGINARY DIFFICULTIES--EFFECT ON OUR MINDS--PATRICK HENRY--SANDY BECOMES A DREAMER--ROUTE TO THE NORTH LAID OUT--OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED--FRAUDS PRACTICED ON FREEMEN--PASSES WRITTEN--ANXIETIES AS THE TIME DREW NEAR--DREAD OF FAILURE--APPEALS TO COMRADES--STRANGE PRESENTIMENT--COINCIDENCE--THE BETRAYAL DISCOVERED--THE MANNER OF ARRESTING US--RESISTANCE MADE BY HENRY HARRIS--ITS EFFECT--THE UNIQUE SPEECH OF MRS. FREELAND--OUR SAD PROCESSION TO PRISON--BRUTAL JEERS BY THE MULTITUDE ALONG THE ROAD--PASSES EATEN--THE DENIAL--SANDY TOO WELL LOVED TO BE SUSPECTED--DRAGGED BEHIND HORSES--THE JAIL A RELIEF--A NEW SET OF TORMENTORS--SLAVE-TRADERS--JOHN, CHARLES AND HENRY RELEASED--ALONE IN PRISON--I AM TAKEN OUT, AND SENT TO BALTIMORE.

I am now at the beginning of the year 1836, a time favorable for serious thoughts. The mind naturally occupies itself with the mysteries of life in all its phases--the ideal, the real and the actual. Sober people look both ways at the beginning of the year, surveying the errors of the past, and providing against possible errors of the future. I, too, was thus exercised. I had little pleasure in retrospect, and the prospect was not very brilliant. "Notwithstanding," thought I, "the many resolutions and prayers I have made, in behalf of freedom, I am, this first day of the year 1836, still a slave, still wandering in the depths of spirit-devouring thralldom. My faculties and powers of body and soul are not my own, but are the property of a fellow mortal, in no sense superior to me, except that he has the physical power to compel me to be owned and controlled by him. By the combined physical force of the community, I am his slave--a slave for life." With thoughts like these, I was perplexed and chafed; they rendered me gloomy and disconsolate.