#cugoano

[my-mother-is-the-republic]

But our lives are accounted of no value, we are hunted after as the prey in the desart, and doomed to destruction as the beasts that perish. And for this, should we appear to the inhabitants of Europe, would they dare to say that they have not wronged us, and grievously injured us, and that the blood of millions did not cry out against them?... And is it not strange to think, that they who ought to be considered the most learned and civilized people in the world, that they should carry on a traffic of the most barbarous cruelty and injustice?

Ottobah Cugoano

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery, 1787

[my-mother-is-the-republic]

And tho’ to some what I have said may appear as the rattling leaves of autumn, that may soon be blown away and whirled in a vortex where few can hear and know: I must yet say, although it is not for me to determine the manner that the voice of our complaint implies a vengeance, because of the great iniquity you have done, and because for the cruel injustice done unto us Africans; and it ought to sound in your ears as the rolling waves around your circum-ambient shores; and if it is not hearkened unto, it may yet arise with a louder voice, as the rolling thunder, and it may encrease in the force of its volubility, not only to shake the leaves of the most stout in heart, but to rend the mountains before them, and to cleave in pieces the rocks under them, and to go on with fury to smite the stoutest oaks in the forest, and even to make that which is strong, and wherein you think that your strength lieth, to become as stubble, and as the fibres of rotten wood, that will do you no good, and your trust in it will become a snare of infatuation to you!

Quobna Ottobah Cugoano

Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery, 1787

[versacehag]

I've been reading for about an hour and everything I read is going over my head.

Like all this Cugoano guy has talked about is how he was captured and how he doesn't agree with slavery.

And literally there's nothing else to it.

What a waste of $20.