Slavery was an accepted way of life in America during the nineteenth century. Public sentiment on the subject formed largely from the writings of southerners who rationalized slavery’s existence. White people enslaved black people and believed the Negro race was naturally inferior and would benefit under the white man’s care. However, as Douglass pointed out in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, slavery provided no such benefits. Frederick Douglass was born on a plantation on the Eastern Shore of Maryland around 1818. Born into slavery, Douglass introduced the reality of slavery. Douglass, along with other slaves, did not know his birthdate or even who his father was. In addition to this obscurity, Douglass …show more content…
Often slaves were traded like livestock and forced to relocate from their familiar to the unknown. Female slaves were often raped by their male owners. Any offspring from such encounters suffered additionally due to resentment from the owner’s wife and were also often forced to relocate. Food and clothing were meagerly provided. Slave labor was incessant. Abuse and brutality were rampant. Beatings and whippings were common place. Numerous slave killings were never brought to justice. Fear and hopelessness knew no bounds. In this environment of both physical and mental control, slaves were made to fear for their own safety too much to attempt to stop the brutality. Through this dehumanization, they became virtual participants in the …show more content…
These mind games helped explain the common actions of slaves as normal human responses under the circumstances. As an example, the slave-breaker, Covey, enacted such cruelty on Douglass that he broke. Douglass wrote, “My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!” Garrison argued that any race would have become as degraded as the Negro race, had they been subject to slavery. Mental deterioration was a result of slavery, not a preexisting quality of the slave population. Slavery was not a natural condition resulting from a superior and inferior relationship, but the result of a calculated process to break and control
First of all, the early life of Frederick Douglass was horrible and very difficult. He was born on February 1818 in Tuckahoe, Maryland. 7 His parents were from two different races. His father was white while his mother was a African American. At that time period slave auctions were held to sell black slaves to white land owners. It was at a slave auction that as a child Frederick Douglass was separated from his Negro mother. His mother was sold and Douglass never saw an inch of her again in his entire life.
The issue of slavery in antebellum America was not black and white. Generally people in the North opposed slavery, while inhabitants of the South promoted it. However, many people were indifferent. Citizens in the North may have seen slavery as neither good nor bad, but just a fact of Southern life. Frederick Douglass, knowing the North was home to many abolitionists, wrote his narrative in order to persuade these indifferent Northern residents to see slavery as a degrading practice. Douglass focuses on dehumanization and freedom in order to get his point across.
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...
During the time of slavery, slaves were put to work on plantation, fields, and farms. They were considered property to their slave-owners and put under unfair living conditions. Growing up in this era, we can see the injustice between white and colored people. And one slave by the name of Fredrick Douglass witnessed this unjust tension. And because of this tension, dehumanizing practices became prominent among the slaves and in slave society. The most prominent of these injustices is the desire of slave owners to keep their slaves ignorant. This practice sought to deprive the slaves of their human characteristics and made them less valued. Fredrick Douglass was able to endure and confront this issue by asserting his own humanity. He achieved
There were many influential people who fought for the abolition of slavery in the 1800s. Among these people are Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison, and our sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. Frederick Douglass is one of these people. As a former slave, Frederick Douglass believed he could not enjoy his freedom while the rest of his people suffered under the burden of slavery. Therefore, he spent much of his adult life working to abolish slavery. Frederick Douglass was a notable figure in the abolitionist movements in the 1800s and is still honored today.
Frederick Douglass, in his autobiography, singles out the atrocities of the “Peculiar Institution”, from foul to barbarous. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, former slave turned abolitionist, Frederick Douglass (1845) states that many masters treated their slaves cruelly. Douglass (1845) tells of many instances of this inimical treatment. One horror is that many slave women were raped by their white master and then bore them children (p. 2-3) . Douglass' mother might have experienced this (p.2-3). Another was the inhumane ways that slaves were punished, ways such as whipping, having them killed, horribly beaten and many others (p.14-15). Author Fergus M. Bordewich in his book Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America, tells of more atrocious forms of punishment. One form that Bordewich (2005) describes is horrifically amputating a slave's ear or limb, and then the masters would either hanging the slave or putting the slave into a cage to die (p.25). Another Bordew...
Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Tuckahoe, Talbot County, Maryland. He was raised by his grandmother, Betsey Bailey. Throughout childhood he never met a slave who knew their age or birthday. 2 However, his master once said he was about seven in 1835, which would make him born in 1828.3 There were few slaves who knew their parents. However, ones who did had a minimal relationship. Frederick Douglass was not much different because he knew who his mother was. His mother was Harriet Bailey. He was separated from her as an infant.4 This separation may have been made so slaves would not develop a sense of self. Developing this led to gaining knowledge. Therefore, they believed it led to uncontrollable slaves.
The interesting theme of slavery dehumanizing both slave and master resonates clearly throughout Frederick Douglass’s narrative. I rate this work of literature a five out of five stars, since it puts the horrors of slavery in a more personal light, making it all the more repulsive. However, since the book followed themes and not chronological order, reading some portions was a challenge. Nevertheless, Douglass accomplished what his mission for the narrative was—to show that slaves are not inferior; ignorance is only a temporary result of slavery. Those, like Douglass, who wish to be free, cannot be held back by it.
Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland where he was separated from his mother after birth and forced into slavery. The exact date of Frederick Douglass’ birth is unknown but it is estimated that he was born around 1817-1818. Douglass taught himself to read with the help from others. When Douglass was around the age of 21 he escaped to Massachusetts where he got married, changed his last name from Bailey to Douglass and started giving speeches to get rid of slavery. In 1845 Douglass fled to England because of the danger he faced since he was considered a criminal. Two years late he returned to the US where with the help of his British friends, he purchased his freedom for around $700. When in the US, he founded a newspaper, The North Star. He used this newspaper to support his abolitionist cause. During the Civil War, Douglass worked for the Underground Railroad and helped recruit African American soldiers for the union armies. In 1848 Frederick Douglass published an autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which instantly became a best seller a...
Douglass mentions countless instances where slaves were murdered in cold blood, or beaten nearly to death with the white perpetrators never being punished. This indifference tinged with contempt for slaves’ lives is summed up with the phrase, it’s “Worth a half cent to kill a N—, and “half-cent to bury one” (Douglass 15). All of these pieces of evidence help to destroy in the reader’s mind the idea that slavery is a benevolent system for the slaves. The imagery catches the readers eye, makes them see it in their mind. It brings the horror of slavery out in gory detail as they read it. The pure visceral images of a woman being beaten among her crying children, a mother and son torn apart, of guiltless flesh being beaten for a sadistic mans pleasure, of an old woman left to die alone, all add to the power of the argument. The diction builds the imagery, packs it with meaning, makes it unforgettable and haunting. The specific examples pile on each other, as a wave of facts, a tidal wave of un-deniability; it crashes on the reader’s head with a tangible force, making them rethink things they believed to be true, to be self-evident, to be righteous. All of these literary devices and more work together in Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass to shatter the belief that slavery is beneficial for the slave, that it is in any way is kind, gentle, or
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.
In autumn of 1828, Frederick Douglass began his new life as a freeman in the old whaling city of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Slave narratives depicted a lot of dehumanizing aspects. More times than not slaves felt like property and not real human beings. In these true stories slaves write about how their treatment lead to the breaking of their spirit and motivation. There were plenty examples of harsh working conditions. It was demeaning for the slaves to be deprived of learning and knowledge. In regards to women who were slaves they had to endure a lot of sexual abuse from their masters. The slave owners would also give slaves false illusions on what freedom really meant. It was common for slaves to be removed from their families. Resources were always inadequate to meet their needs. These examples of dehumanization described through personal narratives were all reasons why Americans decided to join the abolition movement.
Slavery the act of “legally” or economically applying principles of law to humans, allowing them to be classified as property, to be owned, bought and sold accordingly. While a human is enslaved, the owner is entitled to the productivity of the slave 's labor, without any payment for work or service. The rights and protection which may be none, of the slave will be regulated by laws and customs in a time and place, which may lead to a person becoming a slave from the time of their capture, purchase or birth. Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was born into slavery sometime around 1818. He became one of the most famous intellectuals of his time, advising presidents and lecturing to thousands on a range of causes. Among Douglass’s writings
Within the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave” Douglass discusses the deplorable conditions in which he and his fellow slaves suffered from. While on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, slaves were given a “monthly allowance of eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn” (Douglass 224). Their annual clothing rations weren’t any better; considering the type of field work they did, what little clothing they were given quickly deteriorated. The lack of food and clothing matched the terrible living conditions. After working on the field all day, with very little rest the night before, they must sleep on the hard uncomfortably cramped floor with only a single blanket as protection from the cold. Coupled with the overseer’s irresponsible and abusive use of power, it is astonishing how three to four hundred slaves did not rebel. Slave-owners recognized that in able to restrict and control slaves more than physical violence was needed. Therefore in able to mold slaves into the submissive and subservient property they desired, slave-owners manipulated them by twisting religion, instilling fear, breaking familial ties, making them dependent, providing them with an incorrect view of freedom, as well as refusing them education.