Enslaved spokesmen defined freedom as reaping one’s own labor’s fruit

Evidence

“Slavery is receiving by irresistible power the work of another man, and not by his consent,” Frazier replied. Freedom, he continued, would have the effect of “taking us from under the yoke of bondage and placing us where we could reap the fruit of our own labor, and take care of ourselves, and assist the Government in maintaining our freedom.” — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 10

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘fruit of our own labor’ framing is a core accounting/labor-equity argument that ties directly to the book’s reparations-as-accounting thesis and to Brown’s Whiteness of Wealth diagnosis.