Darwin sees nobility in old former slave

This spot [near Rio de Janeiro] is notorious from having been, for a long time, the residence of some runaway slaves, who, by cultivating a little ground near the top, contrived to eke out a subsistence. At length they were discovered, and a party of soldiers being sent, the whole were seized with the exception of one old woman, who sooner than again be led into slavery, dashed herself to pieces from the summit of the mountain. In a Roman matron this would have been called the noble love of freedom: in a poor degrees it is mere brutal obstinacy.

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (London: John Murray, 1913 reprint ed., ch. II, p. 19