And there are so many silences to be broken.

the decision to define ourselves, name ourselves, and speak for ourselves, in~ stead of being defined and spoken for by others

Black women have on one hand always been highly visible, and so, on the other hand, have been rendered invisible through the depersonalization of racism.

Iam not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.

pain will either change or end .

transformation of silence into language and action.

risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.

I like grit, wherever I see it.

A thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one moment to Eliza.

Mrs. Shelby’s dread of his succeeding in recapturing Eliza and her child, and of course the greater her motive for detaining him by every female artifice.

“I say, Sol,” said the woman, “is that ar man going to tote them bar’ls over tonight?”

As she was also so white as not to be known as of colored lineage, without a critical survey, and her child was white also, it was much easier for her to pass on unsuspected.

“No, no, Harry darling! mother can’t eat till you are safe! We must go on—on—till we come to the river!”

to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning,—if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape,—how fast could you walk?

Her husband’s suffering and dangers, and the danger of her child, all blended in her mind, with a confused and stunning sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever known, and cutting loose from the protection of a friend whom she loved and revered.

and the husband and wife were parted.

“I won’t be taken, Eliza; I’ll die first! I’ll be free, or I’ll die!”

Mas’r will find out that I’m one that whipping won’t tame. My day will come yet, if he don’t look out.”

“I always thought that I must obey my master and mistress, or I couldn’t be a Christian.”

My master! and who made him my master? That’s what I think of—what right has he to me? I’m a man as much as he is. I’m a better man than he is.

“Yes, Eliza, it’s all misery, misery, misery! My life is bitter as wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all. What’s the use of our trying to do anything, trying to know anything, trying to be anything? What’s the use of living? I wish I was dead!”

No; there is another use that a man can be put to that is WORSE!

“see if he’d step about so smart.

uneasy consciousness of inferiority

Eliza had reached maturity without those temptations which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to a slave

as a petted and indulged favorite

breaking to his wife the arrangement contemplate

I would as soon have one of my own children sold.

poor creature

‘Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?

Mr. Shelby, with a slight shrug, and some perceptible feelings of a disagreeable nature

Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars,

then the thing’s done quietly,—all over before she comes home. Your wife might get her some ear-rings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make up with her.”

I’m a humane man, and I hate to take the boy from his mother, sir.”

Just show ‘em how many watches, feathers, and trinkets, one’s weight in gold would buy, and that alters the case, I reckon.”

“I don’t want to make my fortune on her,” said Mr. Shelby

her finely moulded shape

fling in that chap, and I’ll settle the business

Jim

one of those wild, grotesque songs common among the negroes,

laughed.

hung in glossy curls about his round, dimpled face, while a pair of large dark eyes, full of fire and softness, looked out from beneath the rich, long lashes, as he peered curiously into the apartment.

but I do. I had a fellow, now, in this yer last lot I took to Orleans—‘t was as good as a meetin, now, really, to hear that critter pray; and he was quite gentle and quiet like. He fetched me a good sum, too, for I bought him cheap of a man that was ‘bliged to sell out; so I realized six hundred on him. Yes, I consider religion a valeyable thing in a nigger, when it’s the genuine article, and no mistake.”

He was a short, thick-set man, with coarse, commonplace features, and that swaggering air of pretension which marks a low man who is trying to elbow his way upward in the world

There were no servants present

I have to thank those negroes you see, who, though to your inexperienced eyes appearing unruly, have, indeed, conducted themselves with less of restlessness than even their owner could have thought possible under such circumstances.”

my poor, poor master!

transforming the man into a block, or rather into a loaded cannon, which, until there is call for thunder, has nothing to say.

His cough

Thus, the Spaniard, regarded in his reserve, seemed the involuntary victim of mental disorder

less a servant than a devoted companion

Spanish captain,

like so many

The ship seems unreal; these strange costumes, gestures, and faces, but a shadowy tableau just emerged from the deep,

strange inmates in a strange land

Castile and Leon, medallioned about by groups of mythological or symbolical devices; uppermost and central of which was a dark satyr in a mask, holding his foot on the prostrate neck of a writhing figure, likewise masked.

Italian palaces

several baskets of the fish

saya-y-manta

Chili.

watch her

It is good for me that I have been afflicted

Having now received one of our children,

one being dead, and the other we could not tell where, abated our comfort each to other

and in coming along my heart melted into tears, more than all the while I was with them, and I was almost swallowed up with the thoughts that ever I should go home again

except my husband would come for me, but afterwards they assented to it, and seemed much to rejoice in it; some asked me to send them some bread, others some tobacco, others shaking me by the hand, offering me a hood and scarfe to ride in; not one moving hand or tongue against it

destroyed such a captain and his company at such a place

(with their black faces)

the English must stop

Shall there be evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it? They are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph, therefore shall they go captive, with the first that go captive. It is the Lord’s doing, and it should be marvelous in our eyes.

I told them, they had as good knock me in head as starve me to death.

“The things that my soul refused to touch are as my sorrowful mea

Then I took it of the child, and eat it myself, and savory it was to my taste

one of them my own sister’s

So like were these barbarous creatures to him who was a liar from the beginning.

Thomas Read

but I found no comfort here neither

and being taken by them

she threw a handful of ashes in mine eyes.

seen my son a pretty while, and here was an Indian of whom I made inquiry after him, and asked him when he saw him. He answered me that such a time his master roasted him, and that himself did eat a piece of him, as big as his two fingers, and that he was very good meat

that it would be no matter if my head were off too.

I found six acorns, and two chestnuts, which were some refreshment to me

As soon as I had the opportunity, I took my Bible to read, and that quieting Scripture came to my hand, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46.10). Which stilled my spirit for the present.

I complained it was too heavy, whereupon she gave me a slap in the face, and bade me go

she found me sitting and reading in my Bible; she snatched it hastily out of my hand, and threw it out of doors

He answered me “Nux,

I desired them that they would carry me to Albany upon one of those horses, and sell me for powder: for so they had sometimes discoursed. I was utterly hopeless of getting home on foot, the way that I came. I could hardly bear to think of the many weary steps I had taken, to come to this place

When I was in the canoe I could not but be amazed at the numerous crew of pagans that were on the bank on the other side

Joseph unexpectedly came to me

turned my hand against their adversaries

filthy trash

“Wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine Heart, wait I say on the Lord.”

my son came to me

Then they went and showed me where it was, where I saw the ground was newly digged, and there they told me they had buried it. There I left that child in the wilderness,

I then remembered how careless I had been of God’s holy time; how many Sabbaths I had lost and misspent, and how evilly I had walked in God’s sight;

It being about six years, and five months old. It was nine days from the first wounding, in this miserable condition, without any refreshing of one nature or other, except a little cold water.

“your master will knock your child in the head,” and then a second, and then a third,

having no Christian friend near me

few boughs behind me, with my sick child in my lap; and calling much for water, being now (through the wound) fallen into a violent fever.

at which they, like inhumane creatures, laughed,

Then they set me upon a horse with my wounded child in my lap,

God was with me in a wonderful manner, carrying me along, and bearing up my spirit, that it did not quite fail

black creatures

Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies

his own language

Have my golden image in the House of the Sun

Care for them and they shall serve you.

plough furrows in token

I leave you these our relations that they may be your councillors.

one hundred and three years

orejones

then in the city