Frederick Douglass: How Slavery And Its Negative Impacts

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Although slavery affected the United States as a whole, it particularly affected the South, where a majority of the whites were not ready to see slavery abolished. In his narrative, Frederick Douglass helps us understand the impacts of slavery, not only on the African American families, but also on the southern whites, the society as well as the relationships between the whites and African Americans in the southern society. For this paper, I will use Frederick's narrative to discuss how slavery affected the south in general.

According to Frederick, his mistress, Sophia, had been very kind to him at first. He describes her as having been a kind, tender hearted woman, who treated him like a human being. She not only allowed him to learn, …show more content…

Her husband had planted an evil seed that led her to become a different person, affecting her own moral health. Mrs. Sophia Auld therefore becomes a perfect example of the negative effects of slavery. According to Frederick, she had never owned a slave before, and he was her very first one. When her husband instructs her to stop teaching him how to read and the consequences of teaching him (that she would ultimately lose her property), she is transformed to a mean and heartless woman. This shows her being transformed from a kind, and loving person to a dehumanized being without any kindness or mercy. As a result of slavery, her views and relationship with black people changes for the worse. She is no longer sympathetic to the suffering of others, and is therefore desensitized to such suffering and the needs of others. She degrades Frederick in to a position of submission, no longer looking at him as a human being, but a black person, who is not fit to interact with her or get an opportunity to read. As a slave owner, Sophia loses her humanity. She is filled with anger and contempt for blacks like Frederick, looking at him as inferior. (Douglass, 1845) As he puts it, "for it is almost an unpardonable offense to teach slaves to read in this Christian

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