Frederick Douglass: Separation Among Christianity

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Separation Among Christianity “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.” -Frederick Douglass. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, by Frederick Douglass, shares the story of the struggles of an American slave during the eighteenth-century. Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland in approximately 1818. While being raised by his grandmother, Betsey Bailey, he sneaked around at night to meet his mother nearby, assuming that his slaveholder, Captain Anthony, was his father. From adolescence, Douglass knew he was different than the white children on the plantation. He found that the child of a slaveholder and slave was treated more harshly due to the controversy among the slaveholder and his wife. He also learned that it was acceptable for slaveholders to beat and strike their slaves. He recognized, after many years of being weakened by his …show more content…

Douglass uses his autobiography to express the distinct separation amongst the true Christians and the white slaveholder Christians during the eighteenth-century American slavery. Douglass seems to weave religious controversy into his autobiography, defining the difference of actions amongst the slaves and slaveholders. Douglass was an American slave who believed in Christianity but struggled with the idea that slaveholders could beat, rape and kill their slaves, announcing, “I speak advisedly when I say that in Talbot County, Maryland, killing a slave, or any colored person, was not treated as a crime” (The Life and Time 41). Although the slaveholders were known as the ideal church-going Christians, Douglass declared otherwise, stating,

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