eless SLAVES.
Alas for them! Their parents cannot train them as they will, for they
too have MASTERS. These masters say to them:

"Your children are OURS--OUR PROPERTY! They shall not be taught to read
or write; they shall never go to school; they shall not be taught to
read the Bible; they must submit to us and not to you; we shall whip
them, sell them, and do what else we please with them. They shall never
own themselves, never have the right to dispose of themselves, but shall
obey us in all things as long as they live!"

"Why do their fathers let these masters have their children? My father
wouldn't let anybody have me," I hear one of my little free-spirited
readers ask.

Simply, my noble boy, because they can't help it. The masters have
banded themselves together, and have made a set of wicked laws by which
nearly four millions of men, women, and children are declared to be
their personal chattels, or property. So that if one of these slave
fathers should refuse to let his child be used as the property of his
master, those wicked laws would help the master by inflicting cruel
punishments on the parent. Hence the poor slave fathers and mothers are
forced to silently witness the cruel wrongs which their helpless
children are made to suffer. Violence has been framed into a law, and
the poor slave is trodden beneath the feet of the powerful.

"But why did those slaves let their masters bring them into this state?
Why didn't they fight as our forefathers did when they threw off the
yoke of England's laws?" inquires a bright-eyed lad who has just risen
from the reading of a history of our Revolution.

The slaves were not reduced to their present servile condition in large
bodies. When our ancestors settled this country they felt the need of
more laborers than they could hire. Then wicked men sailed from England
and other parts of Europe to the coast of Africa. Sending their boats
ashore filled with armed men, they fell upon the villages of the poor
Africans, set fire to their huts, and, while they were filled with
fright, seized, handcuffed, and dragged them to their boats, and then
carried them aboard ship.

This piracy was repeated until the ship was crowded with negro men,
women, and children. The poor things were packed like spoons below the
deck. Then the ship set sail for the coast of America. I cannot tell you
how horribly the poor negroes suffered. Bad air, poor food, close
confinement, and cruel treatment