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Slavery in the us its impact on culture
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Slavery: The Double-Edged Sword
To be black is to be naturally inferior; this was the mindset of the American South in the beginning of the 19th century. African Americans were confined to slavery with no means to change their situation or to escape the abuse that often accompanied their position. Slaves endured all forms of physical and mental punishment whose sole purpose was to keep them inferior to their white suppressors. Slaves were maintained through ignorance; they had their self-identity stolen from them and were kept illiterate to prevent them from questioning what power kept them oppressed and to prevent them from spreading word of the brutalities they faced. To be a slave meant to live a doomed life. Negros were not the only ones who were ruined by the institution of slavery, though. Frederick Douglass, an African American social reformer, leader of the abolitionist movement, and former slave, believed that the unnatural means of slavery had harmful effects on everyone within the institution of slavery. Although slaves faced physical, mental, and psychological abuse, slave owners were also degraded and ruined by the institution of slavery, because it distressed slaveholding families, caused warped forms of Christianity with unjust morals to arise, and reduced civil people to fiends through irresponsibility. Through his Narrative and his speeches, Douglass reasoned that if everyone within the institution of slavery was tarnished by it, then it must be unnatural, and therefore a threat to society as a whole that must be removed.
Slavery not only ruined the lives of those who were oppressed by it, but also the lives of the oppressors, because slavery was capable of ruining the family life of slave owners. Douglass obs...
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...slavery can no longer be hidden from the rest of the world, because political ideas possess no boundaries. Douglass concludes with a poem entitled "The Triumph of Freedom," to stress that freedom is unavoidable. By showing the detrimental effects of slaveholding on Thomas and Sophia Auld, Mr. Covey, and others, as well as proving that slavery is a practice that degrades the founding qualities of America, Douglass proves that slavery is unnatural and evil, and should be outlawed not only for the greater good of all society, but because it the great sin and shame of America .
Bibliography
Douglass, Frederick, and David W. Blight. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave: with related documents. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.
Eifler, Mark. “Early American History.” Class lecture, University of Portland, Portland, OR, March, 2014.
middle of paper ... ... Douglass, Frederick. A. A. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Atlanta: Kessinger Publishing, 2008. 8.
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.
In sum, all of these key arguments exist in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” because of the institution of slavery and its resulting lack of freedom that was used to defend it. This text’s arguments could all be gathered together under the common element of inequality and how it affected the practical, social, and even spiritual lives of the slaves.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Professor David Hennessy, 1845.
Douglas, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (The Harper Single Volume American Literature 3rd edition) 1845:p.1017-1081
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: New American Library, 1987. 243-331.
Jacobus, Lee A. Frederick Douglass. "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave." A World Of Ideas: essential readings for college writers. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. 125-139
Frederick Douglass said, “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave”. Frederick Douglass could not be farther from the truth. Frederick Douglass was a slave, and he saw knowledge as a passage to freedom. Slavery was the primary cause of many events from 1800-1861. The issue was not slavery itself necessarily, but the different views and controversy towards it. Slavery was dehumanization; making black people less human. Black people were treated unjustifiably wrong since they were treated like property during this time period. Some events that impacted slavery the most were the Industrial Revolution, Westward expansion,Abolitionist movement, publication of A Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Written By Himself, Dred Scott Decision, John Brown raid, Election of Abraham Lincoln and many more. A group formed known as the Abolitionists, and they opposed the idea of slavery. This group of people brought into light a new thought process of looking at slavery. The idea of slavery justice began to be questioned, and Frederick Douglass and his narrative played a big role.
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.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.
The reader is first introduced to the idea of Douglass’s formation of identity outside the constraints of slavery before he or she even begins reading the narrative. By viewing the title page and reading the words “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by himself” the reader sees the advancement Douglass made from a dependent slave to an independent author (Stone 134). As a slave, he was forbidden a voice with which he might speak out against slavery. Furthermore, the traditional roles of slavery would have had him uneducated—unable to read and incapable of writing. However, by examining the full meaning of the title page, the reader is introduced to Douglass’s refusal to adhere to the slave role of uneducated and voiceless. Thus, even before reading the work, the reader knows that Douglass will show “how a slave was made a man” through “speaking out—the symbolic act of self-definition” (Stone 135).
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”( Douglass). This famous quote epitomizes the philosophies of Frederick Douglass, in which he wanted everyone to be treated with dignity; if everyone was not treated with equality, no one person or property would be safe harm. His experience as a house slave, field slave and ship builder gave him the knowledge to develop into a persuasive speaker and abolitionist. In his narrative, he makes key arguments to white abolitionist and Christians on why slavery should be abolished. The key arguments that Frederick Douglass
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slavery was cruelty at its best. Slavery is described as long work days, a lack of respect for a human being, and the inability for a man or a woman to have gainful employment. The slaves were victimized the most for obvious reasons. Next on the list would be the families of both the slave and slave owners. At the bottom of the list would be the slave owners. Slavery does in fact victimize slaves, slave owner and their families by repeating the same cycle every generation.
Print. The. Douglass, Frederick. A. A. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995. Print.
Douglass, Frederick, and David W. Blight. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave: With Related Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003. Print.