Were Our Homes

My infancy was spent upon the floor

My early boyhood in playing with others

Colored and white

Beatings with a chair, a broom, tongs

A zeal so active in these barbarous inflictions

And no slaves that are so badly abused as those related

As I grew older I was entrusted with the care of masters saddle-horse

Then hoe put in hand

The food of those upon my masters plantation consisted of

corn-meal and salt herrings

In these wretched hovel

Where we pended at night

And fed by day

Where the children born

And sick neglected

A child taken into cellar

and killed

Earth soaked in

Snow on ground

and floor as miry as a pig-sty

Were our houses