Masters? Select one in the first excerpt Which parts of these excerpts show that slaves had no legal rights and were often betrayed by their
and two in the second excerpt.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
by Frederick Douglass (excerpt)
Not a slave was left free. All remained slaves, from the youngest to the oldest.
If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served
to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their base
ingratitude to my poor old grandmother.
She
had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She was nevertheless a slave-a slave for life-a slave in the hands of
strangers: and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided like so many sheep, without being
gratified with the small privilege of a single word as to their or her own destiny.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Ann Jacobs (excerpt)
He was a bright, handsome lad, nearly white; for he inherited the complexion my grandmother had derived from Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
Though only ten years oid, seven hundred and twenty dollars were paid for him. His sale was a terrible blow to my grandmother; but she was
naturally hopeful, and she went to work with renewed energy, trusting in time to be able to purchase some of her children.
She had laid up three hundred dollars, which her mistress one day begged as a loan, promising to pay her soon. The reader probably knows
that no promise or writing given to slave legally binding for, according to Southern laws, a slave, being property, can hold no
property. While my grandmother
was thus helping to support me from her hard earnings, the three hundred dollars she had lent her
mistress were never repaid.
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