I lived in Master Hugh's family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in
learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various
stratagems. I had no regular teacher. My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct
me, had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to
instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by any one else. It is due,
however, to my mistress to say of her, that she did not adopt this course of treatment
immediately. She at first lacked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental
darkness. It was at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of
irresponsible power, to make her equal to the task of treating me as though I were a brute.
My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tenderhearted woman; and in the simplicity
of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed
one human being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she
did not seem to perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for
her to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved
as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-
hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had
bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came
within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities.
Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way
to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing
to instruct me. She now commenced to practise her husband's precepts. She finally
became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself. She was not
satisfied with simply doing as well as he had commanded; she seemed anxious to do
better. Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She
seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all
up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her
apprehension. She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her
satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.
From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a separate room any
considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once
called to give an account of myself. All this, however, was too late. The first step had
been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no
precaution could prevent me from taking the ell.
The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of
making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I
could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in
different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I was sent of errands, I
always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time
