HKB
5 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: equity, mercy, and pardon · justice as a virtue · workhouse regime · two-day comedy structure · slavery and bondage · sexuality and desire · religious condemnation of cruelty · poor law bastilles · plot summary · plantation household · personal autonomy argument · natural law and higher law
Usually: argument (2) · narrative (2) · reunion (2) · censure (2) · detachment (2) · indignation (2) · list or catalogue (1) · betrayal (1) · grief and loss (1) · injustice endured (1)
“I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons.” Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom · precept
“O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your God, who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough that we are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and lust of gain?” Olaudah Equiano (also known as Gustavus Vassa), The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equ · observation
“Yet the food is supposed to be wholesome and the treatment humane with all this. But the intent of the law is too loudly outspoken for this requirement to be in any wise fulfilled.” Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 184 · observation
Equiano describes how enslaved people are sold in the merchant’s yard by a drum signal as buyers rush in, separating family members permanently, and he condemns this “refinement in cruelty.”
We were not many days in the merchant's custody before we were sold after their usual manner, which is this:--On a signal given,(as the beat of a drum) the buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the appre…
Douglass explains to Thomas Auld why he resolved, as a child, to run away after witnessing family separation and brutal whippings, arguing slavery violates the natural equality and autonomy of persons.
was sufficient; my mind was made up. I embraced the golden opportunity, took the morning tide at the flood, and a free man, young, active, and strong, is the result. I have often thought I should like to explain to you the grounds upon which I have justified myself in running away from you. I am almost ashamed to do so now, for by this time you may have discovered them yourself. I will, however, glance at them. When…
He describes the operational regime of the 1834 New Poor Law workhouses—abolished outdoor relief, harsh food and work, restricted family life, and supervised visits—arguing its “spirit” makes it function as a prison.
directly or through inducing in others laziness and want of employment. Live you shall, but live as an awful warning to all those who might have inducements to become "superfluous." They accordingly brought in the New Poor Law, which was passed by Parliament in 1834, and continues in force down to the present day. All relief in money and provisions was abolished; the only relief allowed was admission to the workhou…
Moll learns her mother is dead and her brother/husband has been living on a nearby plantation with one of his sons, and she tries to watch him without revealing herself because he is dim-sighted.
and where I lived with him, and lived with one of his sons in a plantation just by the place where we landed, and where we had hired a warehouse. I was a little surprised at first, but as I ventured to satisfy myself that he could not know me, I was not only perfectly easy, but had a great mind to see him, if it was possible to so do without his seeing me. In order to that I found out by inquiry the plantation where…
The “Heautontimorumenos” play is summarized: a strict father makes his son leave for war, later regrets it, and then learns—via servants’ deception and a discovered kinship—that Antiphila is his daughter’s child and that he finally consents to marriages.
THE SUBJECT. CHREMES commands his wife, when pregnant, if she is delivered of a girl immediately to kill the child. Having given birth to a girl, Sostrata delivers her to an old woman named Philtera to be exposed. Instead of doing this, Philtera calls her Antiphila, and brings her up as her own. Clinia, the son of Menedemus, falls in love with her, and treats her as though his wife. Menedemus, on learning this, is v…