How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
At length, he said, "I was in my mother's womb when she was bought. My master purchased me and her, one price. My name's Pro Bono. For free. They got two, my mother and me, for the price of one." (1.10.21)
That's Bono, explaining to Octavian why he wants to change his name. We don't blame him—his name's a constant reminder that free may be in his name, but that he's far from being truly free.
Quote #2
He said, "Surely it don't have anything to do with them selling the sickliest slaves up New England way after no one buys them down South."
He shook his head. "No," he said, "she walked down the gangplank with page boys and trumpets." (1.10.36-37)
Bono's setting the record straight for Octavian. Cassiopeia probably didn't get to "choose" Boston; Cassiopeia was a slave, like all the other slaves on that boat—unwanted in the South and so sent up the coast to New England. Bono's point is also a reminder that—yep—the North bought slaves too.
Quote #3
In the days that followed this conversation with Bono, I began to look about me with new eyes—that is to say, with eyes from which the scales had new-fallen, where bedazzlement was harsh and all about me; and I saw for the first time and understood that in our house and the houses we visited, there were black and white, bonded, freed, free-born, indentured, enslaved, and hired. (1.11.1)
Octavian's just figured out that he's a slave. Sure, he's not the typical slave, but Mr. G still owns him and his mother, and that knowledge isn't something he can forget. In fact, it alters his worldview and—lo and behold—all of a sudden everything is like a shade of slavery.