The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery—that they don't want to be free—that man is either ignorant or a lying person

All slaves want to be free—to be free is very sweet. I have been a slave myself—I know what slaves feel—I can tell by myself what other slaves feel and by what they have told me. The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery—that they don’t want to be free—that man is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard a slave say so. They can’t do without slaves, they say. What’s the reason they can’t do without slaves as well in England? Let them work ever so hard in England, they are far better off than slaves. If they get a bad master, they give warning and go hire another.
~ Mary Prince (1831)