1 I had as well be killed running as die standing.
2 Mr. Thomas Lanman, of St. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of whom he killed with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out.
3 My master sent me away, because there existed against me a very great prejudice in the community, and he feared I might be killed.
4 It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half-cent to kill a "nigger," and a half-cent to bury one.
5 I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me.
6 With this, two of the constables pulled out their shining pistols, and swore, by their Creator, that they would make him cross his hands or kill him.
7 If I had been killed in the presence of a thousand colored people, their testimony combined would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers.
8 I told him, to let me get a new home; that as sure as I lived with Mr. Covey again, I should live with but to die with him; that Covey would surely kill me; he was in a fair way for it.
9 If a slave ran away and succeeded in getting clear, or if a slave killed his master, set fire to a barn, or did any thing very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of as the fruit of abolition.
10 I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed.
11 They began to put on airs, and talk about the "niggers" taking the country, saying we all ought to be killed; and, being encouraged by the journeymen, they commenced making my condition as hard as they could, by hectoring me around, and sometimes striking me.