I have observed this in my experience of slavery,—that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.

This harrowing account of Frederick Douglass depicts the horrors of the Antebellum South and America's slave machinery.
This account depicts things that (at least a non-US) people learn in English class, particularly the physical torture of enslaved people at the hands of white slave-holders. What I found particularly interesting (and abhorrent) was the description of psychological tactics to keep people enslaved, from the refusal to education (which was a crucial part in the freedom of Douglass) to putting in place systems such as supposedly 'nice' mandatory holidays for time off, that left enslaved people 'striving' for work due to the mental anguish and supply of alcohol. Another striking thing was Douglass's critique of the, as he describes it, slaveholding religion that shows the hypocrisy of slaveholders. It is scary how contemporary this portrait of American Christianity truly is, and how many parallels can be drawn to die-hard religious zealots and politicians today.
This narrative is brief enough that it should be a mandatory read for any English class, and I am glad I encountered this text for a university course on American literature. It is an important account from the point of view of the oppressed, and if anything, it highlights what atrocities went unreported, due to the intellectual suppression of thousands of people.