Our America, 190 years ago. The following is a quote, and obviously not my words.
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I lived with Mr. Covey (the slavebreaker) one year. During the first six months of that year (1833), scarce a week passed without his whipping me.
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If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.
—Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
As quoted in a proximate source, namely:
Show 68 – BLITZ Human Resources from Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
03/06/2022 | 234.9 MiB | 05:39:12
The Atlantic Slave Trade mixes centuries of human bondage with violence, economics, commerce, geo-political competition, liberty, morality, injustice, revolution, tragedy and bloody reckonings. That sounds like a lot, yet this show merely scratches the surface of this enormous subject.
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I got the quote from the podcast episode and in the five-six hours of it there were far worse things. But this one struck me especially, in light of the Marvin and the Man theme.
There’s a lot to say and I won’t say most of it, but …
The main thing is the question of whether our lives have improved. Whether Progress exists.
I get why most people think they have, here in the West and the Empire.
Tomorrow I’ll give you a bit of the counterargument.