MY mother was a slave, belonging to an estate in the township of Accomack, state of Virginia, where I was born in the fall of 1764: but at the age of one year and a half, was torn from her fond embraces, and carried by my owner into Esther county; where I was kept until six years of age; being treated with a degree of indulgence, uncommon to the children of Virginian slaves. However, about this time, my master, for reasons best known to himself, sold me to a person in Sommerset County, state of Maryland; from whom I received much better treatment than is usual for Africans to meet with, in this land of human oppression and barbarity. Here I continued in servitude, until the fifteenth year of my age; when I was again made merchandise of, sold, and sent into Suffolk; where I continued under all the severities of the most abject slavery, till I arrived at the twenty-sixth year of my age.