They [the slaves] have stabbed themselves for freedom—jumped into the waves for freedom—starved for freedom—fought like very tigers for freedom! But they have been hung, and burned, and shot—and their tyrants have been their historians!

Child’s sentence is a compressed indictment of slavery’s violence and of the way power controls the historical record. By listing desperate acts—suicide, flight into the sea, self-starvation, and ferocious resistance—she insists that enslaved people repeatedly chose extreme risk over bondage, refuting any claim that they were passive or content. The second half pivots from physical repression (hanging, burning, shooting) to narrative repression: the enslavers not only killed rebels but also authored the “histories” that framed such resistance as criminality rather than a struggle for liberty. The quote thus links abolitionism to a broader demand for truthful historiography and moral accountability.