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CHARACTER OF EPPS. 183
Ten years I toiled for that man without reward. Ten years of my incessant labor has contributed to increase the bulk of his possessions. Ten years I was compelled to address him with down-cast eyes and uncovered head- in the attitude and languages of a slave. I am indebted to him for nothing, save served abuse and stripes.
Beyond the reach of his inhuman thong, and standing on the soil of the free State where I was born, thanks be to Heaven, I can raise my head once more among men. I can speak of the wrongs I have suffered, and of those who inflicted them, with upraised eyes. But I have no desire to speak of him to any other one otherwise than truthfully. yet to speak truthfully of Edwin Epps would be to say - he is a man in whose heart the quality of kindness or of justice is not found. A rough, rude, energy, united with an uncultivated mind and an avaricious spirit are his prominent characteristics. He is known as a "nigger breaker," distinguished for his faculty of subduing the spirit of the slave, and riding himself upon his reputation in this respect, as a jockey boasts of his skill in managing a refractory horse. He looked upon a colored man, not as a human being responsible to his Creator for the small talent entrusted to him, but as a "chattel personal," as mere live property, no better, except in value, than his mule or dog. When the evidence, clear and indisputable, was laid before him that I was a free man, and as much entitled to my liberty as he - when, on the day I left, he was informed that I