Frederick Douglass Treatment Of Women Essay

In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass, all of the various women who appeared in Douglass’ life were reduced to little more than caricatures of the violence that could be inflicted upon slaves. This is not necessarily the fault of the author, but of the institution of slavery, layered with the historical inequality of men and women of all races and classes. The victimization of female slaves was a horrible issue in history, and it is illuminated in the pages of the Narrative. However, the issues specifically pertaining to female slaves are too often glossed over in favor of the much broader topic of abolition.
The first woman mentioned in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is his Harriet Bailey, his mother.

Most likely raped and pregnant by her master, her child was taken away from her before he was even a year old. Douglass says that she would walk the twelve-mile journey to see him, despite having severe consequences if she was late to work in the fields, which started at sunset. This type of story does not seem to be unique to her. “It is a common custom in the part of Maryland from which I ran away,” begins Douglass, “to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken away from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result” (Douglass 1, 2).
Later in life, Douglass knew a woman with a similar (yet opposite) situation to that of his mother. Caroline, as she was called, was the only slave bought by Covey. His plan was to forcibly impregnate her, and then use any children that she gave birth to as laboring slaves on his farm. A “Breeder,” she was called. Both Caroline and Harriet Bailey had their choice of whether or not to have children infringed upon by their “masters,” and yet Douglass, in his Narrative, seems to make no clear acknowledgement of this female-specific strain of slavery, instead only really speaking to the (albeit legitimate) horrors of slave labor (Douglass 11, 12).
Another woman is Douglass’ life was his aunt Hester, when he lived on Captain Anthony’s plantation.

“I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart‐rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose,” writes the author (Douglass 3,4). Hester was prohibited from speaking to another slave nearby, Ned Robert. This restriction was set in place for no other reason than a perverted sense of jealousy felt by her and Douglass’ master. He would prohibit Hester from seeing this man, and then, when she inevitably rebelled and broke his ruling, would violently whip her to the point of the quote at the beginning of the

paragraph.
The women in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass were sometimes used as nothing more than examples of the extreme cruelty that could befall a slave, nothing more than throwaway anecdotes to prove his point.

First there was the city slaves who lived across the street from Douglass when he was in Baltimore, Henrietta and Mary. Douglass describes them, specifically Mary, as being suspect to the worst kind of physical torture and abuse, as the most “mangled and emaciated creatures” that he has ever seen (Douglass 15). He also describes his wife’s cousin, who was murdered by a slaveowner in the town where he lived. He says that the female slaveowner “seized an oak stick of wood by the fireplace, and with it broke the girlʹs nose and breastbone, and thus ended her life” (Douglass 10). In addition to these two, there is also Henny, a fellow slave of Douglass’ during his second stretch living in Baltimore. She was disabled, and because of that, her master found her an easy target for physical abuse. “I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture‐‐ʺHe that knoweth his masterʹs will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.ʺ  Master would keep this lacerated young woman tied up in this horrid situation four or five hours at a time. I have known him to tie her up early in the morning, and

whip her before breakfast; leave her, go to his store, return at dinner, and whip her again, cutting her in the places already made raw with his cruel lash. The secret of masterʹs cruelty toward ʺHennyʺ is found in the fact of her being almost helpless” (Douglass 24). None of these women have any characteristics in Douglass’ book than the victimization and suffering that they receive at the hands of their masters and the slaveholders that control them.
There is a clear and obvious differentiation between the treatment of male and female slaves that is only peripherally addressed in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, ignored instead for the broader topic of overall abolition, most likely because it is only abolition for men and focusing on men that affects Douglass specifically. It is important to acknowledge and address differences such as these, so that they can be fixed, instead of using the m=women’s plight to simply back up one’s own argument, as Douglass did in his narrative.