1 There were no loud songs heard from those engaged in loading and unloading ships.
2 Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm.
3 To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery.
4 I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs.
5 Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds.
6 The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.
7 The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me; and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek.
8 While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness.
9 I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.
10 The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.