-- SOLILOQUY

  Living conditions for most enslaved people were terrible. They usually lived in one room, dirt floor shacks, usually without windows.  They ate poorly and  wore shabby clothing and often wore no shoes. ( One spiritual,GOING  TO SHOUT ALL OVER GOD'S HEAVEN, has the following verse:

I’ve got shoes, you’ve got  shoes All of God’s children got shoes
When I get to Heaven goin’ to put on my shoes
Goin’ to walk all over God’s Heaven

Disease was common. People worked long days, from "day clean to day gone."--and when there was a full moon, sometimes into the night. A prominent thought on the enslaved person's mind was freedom.  In this song, Harriet  expresses her feelings of anger and misery over of her situation and emphasizes her continual determination to be a free person, as she knows she should be.  

Lyrics

I wake each mornin'.... feelin'blue..

Moanin'; and groanin' 'bout what I gotta do.
Go up to the big house, work mornin' til night..

Doin' what they say to do with never a fight.

Workin' and workin' the way I be told..
And always a-fearin', I gonna be sold.

The Missus think that I'm property.

But I got feelin's that she ain't never see.
 I be a  slave...  just to push around.
To her just a bug to crawl on the ground.

That's my life, don't belong to me.

But only for now...I soon will be free.

That day will come, cause I'm really mad.

Livin' this way is awefully sad.
It's no life for me, not at all.

I'll stand up for myself...really tall.

Cause I.... Know I'm a woman, a woman who.

Can be my own person, with so much more to do.

I'll help myself and my people too..

Have a better life,  a life brand new.

That's why I decided, I gonna see.

Me, and my brothers and sisters be free...

Click the music for the entire   song

Transcription by Dylan Roberts