Source identified1
Image design Botanical Sage
Read & copy
“Knowledge didn’t agree with slavery— ’Twould make us all too wise.”
Meaning & context
Aunt Chloe identifies literacy as a threat to slavery because learning expands understanding and makes imposed ignorance harder to maintain.
Source details
“Learning to Read” in Sketches of Southern Life, represented by Project Gutenberg #69249. Aunt Chloe speaks in Harper’s first-person poetic persona while recalling enslavers withholding literacy. The dialect, slavery context and constructed poetic voice are retained rather than flattening the couplet into Harper autobiography.