We can find throughout Douglass’s book a lot about the (true and false) religion and I believe Douglass and other abolitionists were truly religious people. “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this island” (Douglass, 237). That’s why we can find so many contexts about religion throughout their work. So for Douglass you couldn’t be a slaveholder and a true Christian at the same time. In his view he states that the slaveholder’s who were religious acted worse than the slave owners who didn’t follow any religion. In Douglass’s entire “Appendix” he wants to make clear, that he is not against religion itself, he had something against the hypocrisy religious. …show more content…
“I recognize the widest possible difference –so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked” (Douglass, 237). As a slave he hated the distortion, hypocritical Christianity, who treated their slaves degrading and brutal. Meaning that the slaveholder’s religion transformed them into cruel and bitter people, who beat, kill and let their slave starve to death. Douglass and many other slaves didn’t understand why this was a justifying act what the masters could do under god’s allegiance and the faith of Christianity like that. That is why I think slaves and Douglass thought about Christianity the way they did and influenced slavery in a highly damaging and disturbing way. He doesn’t want that the reader misunderstood him here, so he clears out that he only have something against the slaveholder’s religion and that is the “Christianity of this land”. In my opinion Davis shows how Marx expresses in his writing what Douglass had experienced. “It is the opium of the
Throughout the entirety of the book, Douglass presents himself as a neutral figure who can see both the negative and positive side of any issue, even slavery. He presents a rational account of why slavery exists and does so without attempting to discuss the morality of the topic at hand. Despite spending a lot of time discussing the cruel masters and supervisors he encountered in life , his anger is not towards those who support slavery, but the institution of slavery as a whole.“Nature has done almost nothing to prepare me...
Lee’s positive experience of the Christian religion, are the collection of the readings from Frederick Douglas, Peter Randolph, and the former slave interviewed by B.A Botkin on the recollections of their negative experience of the Christian religion. Frederick Douglas was an African-American social reformer, writer, and an abolitionist. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became the national leader for African American abolitionist movement in the fight to end slavery. He viewed Christianity in the negative plight because in his understanding it is the driving force to maintain the African American as slaves to their owners. According to the book in the section for Frederick Douglas’s reading the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, American slave” he stated, “that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes…I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For all slaveholders…religious slaveholders are the
...te a passage of the scripture: “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes” (99). This shows that he uses the Bible to justify his pain and suffering onto the slave who does not obey her master. Douglass states, “I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, --- a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,--- a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds--- and a dark shelter under, which the darkest , foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection” (117). For completing these horrid crimes, slaveholders don’t feel bad for their sinful deeds because they feel like scriptures in the Bible support their abuse. In the narrative, Douglass explains how female slaves were victimized because of they were weaker and easier to abuse.
In this final research analysis, I will be doing a comparison between the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” and the “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” to show how both Douglass and Rowlandson use a great deal of person strength and faith in God to endure their life and ultimately gain their freedom.
... “Prior to [Captain Auld’s] conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for the slaveholding cruelty” (Douglass 883). This means that slaveholders use Christianity as a tool to show that they are good at heart and are doing God’s work, but they use it as a divine right to brutally beat slaves. This is what Frederick wants other abolitionists to recognize, especially the abolitionist women.
Slave owners used Christianity as justification for what they did to the slaves . One would think that being a religious person would introduce better values, and would have helped to end the evil acts of slavery. But being a more religious person made a slave owner harsher and tougher it made them go harder on slaves for no reason. Douglass literally considered the worst of slave owners to be the more religious people.. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, Having a religious slave master was the worst thing that happened to me .For of all slave master that I have ever met, religious slave owners are the worst ones. I have ever found them the meanest and cruelest, the most cruel and scared , of all others." In order to help slaves get through some of the bad conditions that they went through .Families should have been provided for kids in slavery but Instead, slavery separated kids from their friends and families so the kid were on their own, even the little ones not only through childhood, but likely for their whole life. Douglass explained about this tragic situation through what he went through as a slave . The argument that "good people tend do bad things" has came throughout the world
Douglass continues to describe the severity of the manipulation of Christianity. Slave owners use generations of slavery and mental control to convert slaves to the belief God sanctions and supports slavery. They teach that, “ man may properly be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God” (Douglass 13). In order to justify their own wrongdoings, slaveowners convert the slaves themselves to Christianity, either by force or gentle coercion over generations. The slaves are therefore under the impression that slavery is a necessary evil. With no other source of information other than their slave owners, and no other supernatural explanation for the horrors they face other than the ones provided by Christianity, generations of slaves cannot escape from under the canopy of Christianity. Christianity molded so deeply to the ideals of slavery that it becomes a postmark of America and a shield of steel for American slave owners. Douglass exposes the blatant misuse of the religion. By using Christianity as a vessel of exploitation, they forever modify the connotations of Christianity to that of tyrannical rule and
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1845. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and passionate abolitionist, provides descriptive stories of his life as a slave, all the way from his childhood to his escape. Chapter four specifically focuses on the unjustness of slavery, and Douglass’ central claim that there is no justice system in the slave world. In chapter four, Douglass describes the brutal murder of Demby and recounts multiple killings of slaves by overseers to support his central claim that slaves receive no justice, safety or security.
The overall tone of Chapter 6, in the book The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, is insentient. Insentient means incapable of feeling or inanimate. He simply is spiritless when he writes this chapter. At the end of chapter 6 Douglass wrote about how a slave named Mary was whipped so often she would bleed. “I have seen Mary contending with the pigs for the offal thrown into the street. So much was Mary kicked and cut to pieces, that she was oftener called “pecked” than by her name”(Douglass page 31). The way he wrote it was as if he didn’t flinch at the awful details of her being whipped. A less disturbing part of his life that he wrote about was when Mrs. Auld got in trouble for teaching him his A, B, C’s. Mr. Auld said it was unlawful and unsafe to teach a slave. Mr. Auld also used mean names to refer to Douglass. Even when Douglass heard them, then realized the white man's power to enslave black man after he didn’t seem very hurt. He took it to heart but didn’t act out. I think Douglass was very controlled which made him seem unattached
In his narrative, Frederick Douglass shows how Christianity was used as a major justification for slavery and for the actions of slave masters, but he also shows how the religion provided hope for slaves themselves. In an appendix added at the end of the narrative, he draws a distinction between “the Christianity of this land” and “the Christianity of Christ,” saying that there is the “widest possible difference” between them. As he puts it, “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” In other words, Douglass thinks that Christianity has been corrupted in America, where people hypocritically use it to justify their injustices.
In The Narrative of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, an African American male describes his day as a slave and what he has become from the experience. Douglass writes this story to make readers understand that slavery is brutalizing and dehumanizing, that a slave is able to become a man, and that he still has intellectual ability even though he is a slave. In the story, these messages are shown frequently through the diction of Frederick Douglass.
In the autobiography, Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass narrates his own life as a slave. He explains and talks about his tough experiences as a slave. Born on a plantation in Maryland he witnesses the abuse of his fellow slaves. As a slave, he saw many “christian slaveholders” who used Christianity as a justification of their actions. Douglass feels like these slaveholders are the worst. Douglass’s disdain for the hypocrisy of Christian slaveholders is shown through his use of tone, personification, and diction.
Douglass makes the distinction between the true and false forms of Christianity clear in the Appendix of his Narrative. He first characterizes the Christianity of Christ, practiced by himself, his fellow slaves, and non-slave owners in general, as genuine and peaceable. This sort of ideology is true to what Douglass interprets as the actual teachings of the Bible, and adherents are humble, kind, impartial, and nondiscriminatory. Douglass then distinguishes this proper ideology from the “corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial, and hypocritical Christianity of this land” (430). Douglass believes that slavery and Christianity are opposing forces. The teachings of C...
Society is so deceivable into believing that what is accepted by society is also correct and reasonable. One would not usually question the humanity of customs if one benefits in return. Frederick Douglass wrote The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass as a way to depict the development of a dehumanized slave progressing into a free man. Frederick Douglass did not start to reconstruct his own self identity until he broke the bindings of being ignorant which his masters placed upon him.
His main argument in the speech is that it 's unjust and hypocritical for a country to celebrate its freedom while it still has slaves. Now that in itself is a morally viable argument, and it has never been more relevant than today in our racially hate fueled world where every situation is turned into a hate crime. However, back in those days majority of slaves were sold into slavery by their own people. Most slaves were sold by rival tribes as prisoners of war, or trouble makers of the tribe, thus giving us the “bottom of the barrel” of the groups. Another counter to Douglass was that even though slaves were people, they were still considered property. A hard working farmer could have used his last penny in order to purchase that slave because he was unable to tend his farm and provide for his family. One common misconception was that all slaves were beaten and treated lower than swine, while to the contrary some were treated well being given a bed and meals every day in exchange for their hard work. While Douglass may have had a bad time under the ownership of Auld, most northern states did not treat their slaves in this manner. This is one of the main reasons Douglass learned how to read, yet no credit is given to his former owner. Most slaves developed a relationship with their owners, in which their owners taught them useful skills such as reading, writing, simple math and farming skills. Another argument brought into Douglass’ speech was that most churches were segregated, and in turn perpetuated the racism that helped keep slavery alive in well. He proposed that a God that wouldn’t allow such evil and disservice in this world would contradict everything the bible proposes and teaches. He praises the writers of the constitution, considering them his equal and thanking the signers of the Declaration of Independence, calling