Slaves' Perspective This essay will attempt to answer four questions that will give us a better understanding of what the slaves themselves thought about the peculiar institution of slavery. The four questions being: 1) How did slaves feel about their masters and /or mistresses? 2) How did slaves feel about their work? Their families? Their religion? 3) How did they feel about freedom? 4) How did slaves feel about themselves? How did slave feel about their masters and /or mistresses? The masters/mistresses are both described as being good and bad, depending on the individual master/mistress. Most of the literature supported the idea that these individuals were cruel, disrespectful, inhumane and even indirectly associated with the Devil. Some wrote of starvation, whippings, solitary confinement and several other cruel acts as punishment for the smallest of matters. There was one particular account by Frederick Douglas that talked about one master that was known as the slave breaker. This individual was known for his devastating acts of violence toward the slaves for any reason he found just. This was his way of breaking them of their bad habits or wrong doings. Masters were known to of had sexual relations with the female slaves. The offspring from these relations were known as mulattoes. A majority of the slave population were of white ancestry but they were never really claimed by those who created them. Not all masters/mistresses were known as bad people there were a few known for there kind acts. Accounts of masters/mistresses buying slaves and setting them free. Their were accounts of slaves working for masters just because they felt they were being treated fairly and were getting adequate boarding. Mas... ... middle of paper ... ...id slaves feel about themselves? In spite of the physical and emotional abuse most of the slave had a very positive and respectful belief of themselves. Their desire to do right and be free kept them close to God and their families. This gave them the self confidence needed so that they may continue on with everyday life. Without this basis their communities would have crumble, as well as their hope for freedom. In summary, the written accounts of the slaves perspective brought an interesting and much needed point of view to the table of many Americans including my own. The past will never be forgotten, and the abolishment of cruelties upon humanities will always be an issue. Racism, Genocides, Blacks, Whites, Asians, all involve people. People with feelings, ideas, and dreams of their own. Noone has the true power to take that away from them, so why try.
Over the years most of us have read a great deal about the institution of slavery and it’s effects on this country and the African American race as a whole. The fact of the matter is most of us have only learned certain information about slavery. There are only certain facts and historical figures that we lean about. No to say that the information we get is wrong, but we were not taught the whole story. This could be due to the approach of different instructors or because school curriculums are supposed to focus on the interesting facts and stories about slavery. The fact of the matter is there are some areas that go untouched when learning about slavery in most schools. Reading the book Black Southerners was something different for me. It was like some one opened a door and when I entered in I found hidden facts and knowledge about an institution that has a tremendous effect on my country and this history of race.
According to Douglass, the treatment of a slave was worse than that of an animal. Not only were they valued as an animal, fed like an animal, and beaten like an animal, but also a slave was reduced to an animal when he was just as much of a man as his master. The open mentality a slave had was ...
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Unlike the majority of colonist who fled to the new nation to escape issues in their former home, slaves’ were instituted into the trans Atlantic slave trade. From there, this is where slaves’ lives began to develop. When the Trans Atlantic slave trade began, numerous slaves were shipped into the Americas when the Portuguese search for gold fell short, they resulted in a much more plentiful commodity. A commodity of Humans developed to benefit the expanding of the European empire and their need for a work force. With the original inhabitants slowly dying off to disease, the desire shifted towards the African Americans since they expressed hard working characteristics, as well as resistant to certain diseases and capable of withstanding the long and exhausting work days in the heat of the south. From there the potential of slave lives would not develop much. As Frederick Douglass describes his experiences with a past master, it helps get a sense of ...
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Slavery was one of the most horrific and in human acts ever instilled on a race of people ever in our world's history. People were stolen from their homelands, broken apart from their families, and were thrust into a lifestyle that inhibited their every move and instilled harsh punishments on them. It is almost impossible for many of us to comprehend the mindsets that these slave owners possessed, but history paints a truly horrific and emotional picture for us all to see.
Throughout the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass himself, the reader is given thoughtful insight into the slave condition and the institution of slavery as a whole. One learns very soon of the authoritative and controlling nature of the slave master, who, using the overseer as his pawn, is able to maintain control over his slaves and his planation through an amalgamation of both physical and mental abuse. Slaves are lead to believe that they are innately inferior to whites and are kept ignorant, unable to read or write, and unaware of the world outside their plantation. They are indoctrinated from birth through fear, for if any slave deviates from this merciless power structure, they face brutal punishment and even the possibility of death. Despite this seemingly insurmountable reality, Frederick Douglass, a slave for over twenty years, was able to resist. He gradually became aware of the psychology of the slave owners, and the immense power that they wielded. Douglass was able to escape the oppressive, exploitative, and controlling power structure of slavery by resolving to overcome his forced ignorance, and to unite his fellow slaves, realizing, along the way, his sense of self and innate integrity.
According to O. Patterson slaves at birth had lost their personal identity and the identity of who they were culturally. There was nothing for them to know except that they were to be loyal to their master and other white folk. Their new cultural identity was structured by the white master. As O. Patterson points out, "By natal alienation, the slave lost a birthright to his or her cultural existence, beyond what the master permitted, thus experiencing a kind of social death" (p.3). The inability for the slave population to create a social existence, since it was not allowed, could only mean that the whites believed that the slaves were dumb chattel with no capacity for human emotion. The master dominated over his slaves, so that he could exploit their labor. "The proprietor of this thing, the mover of this instrument, the soul and the reason of this body, the source of life, was the master" (p.7). Masters also considered their slaves to be inferior and, t...
Slavery was an institution that affected not only the black population but, the white population in the United States as well. Slavery often taught blacks the importance of hard work and education. It was well known by slaves that education would allow them to be freed of the mental slavery that plagued that. Though it did not mean that they had physical freedom, knowledge was a small form of rebellion for some. On the other hand, slavery made white people hungry for power. Slavery turned those that were not typically considered cruel were turned into stonehearted masters. The effects of institution also differed based on the gender of the individual. The way black males experienced slavery was vastly different from the encounters that black
Frederick Douglass, the author of the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, said “I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass, p.71). Modern people can fairly and easily understand the negative effects of slavery upon slave. People have the idea of slaves that they are not allow to learn which makes them unable to read and write and also they don’t have enough time to take a rest and recover their injuries. However, the negative effects upon slaveholder are less obvious to modern people. People usually think about the positive effects of slavery upon slaveholder, such as getting inexpensive labor. In the book “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass also shows modern readers some brutalizing impact upon the owner of the slaves. He talks about Thomas Auld and Edward Covey who are his masters and also talks about Sophia Auld who is his mistress. We will talk about those three characters in the book which will help us to find out if there were the negative influences upon the owner of the slaves or not. Also, we will talk about the power that the slaveholders got from controlling their slaves and the fear that the slaveholders maybe had to understand how they were changed.
The issue of Slavery in the South was an unresolved issue in the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. During these years, the south kept having slavery, even though most states had slavery abolished. Due to the fact that slaves were treated as inferior, they did not have the same rights and their chances of becoming an educated person were almost impossible. However, some information about slavery, from the slaves’ point of view, has been saved. In this essay, we are comparing two different books that show us what being a slave actually was. This will be seen with the help of two different characters: Linda Brent in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Frederick Douglass in The Narrative of the life of Frederick
For most American’s especially African Americans, the abolition of slavery in 1865 was a significant point in history, but for African Americans, although slavery was abolished it gave root for a new form of slavery that showed to be equally as terrorizing for blacks. In the novel Slavery by Another Name, by Douglas Blackmon he examines the reconstruction era, which provided a form of coerced labor in a convict leasing system, where many African Americans were convicted on triumphed up charges for decades.
Douglass's narrative is, on one surface, intended to show the barbarity and injustice of slavery. However, the underlying argument is that freedom is not simply attained through a physical escape from forced labor, but through a mental liberation from the attitude created by Southern slavery. The slaves of the South were psychologically oppressed by the slaveholders' disrespect for a slave’s family and for their education, as well as by the slaves' acceptance of their own subordination. Additionally, the slaveholders were trapped by a mentality that allowed them to justify behavior towards human beings that would normally not be acceptable. In this manner, both slaveholder and slave are corrupted by slavery.
The term slave is defined as a person held in servitude as the chattel of another, or one that is completely passive to a dominating influence. The most well known cases of slavery occurred during the settling of the United States of America. From 1619 until July 1st 1928 slavery was allowed within our country. Slavery abolitionists attempted to end slavery, which at some point; they were successful at doing so. This paper will take the reader a lot of different directions, it will look at slavery in a legal aspect along the lines of the constitution and the thirteenth amendment, and it will also discuss how abolitionists tried to end slavery. This paper will also discuss how slaves were being taken away from their families and how their lives were affected after.
Slavery was a condition that no human being should ever endure. It is a mechanism that shaped every aspect of everyone living at that time period. Common and the most powerful critiques of this institution was that it broke up families, resulted in poor living conditions, and shaped the lives of everyone involved from youth to their adulth