Frederick Douglass Discrimination

Without primary accounts from slaves such as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass the American people would still be in the dark about the true terrors of slavery. Frederick Douglass was one of the few slaves who learned how to write, and also managed to escape. Thanks to this, it became clear that slavery was a totally different story than what the slaveholders were telling. Throughout the narrative Douglass describes his experiences of slavery in detail without much bias. He leaves the reader to determine how evil the actions depicted are, making this hard to believe story much more credible.

The white southerners have grown up with the idea that enslaving black men and tearing them down is alright since they have the idea that African American people are not real humans. Without the African Americans stating how they view slavery as unjust and cruel, it is doubtful those ideas would ever change. As stated at the end of previous chapter, Douglass began to teach other slaves how to read the Bible, and that, later on, led to the plans of escaping to freedom. “The week before our intended start, I wrote several protections, one for each of us.” (95) When people see African Americans reading or writing in public away from any plantation, most people assume they are free slaves, since it is common knowledge that teaching a slave how to read is illegal. When Douglass finally took the chance to escape after the first attempt was revealed and he was sent to a different plantation, he fled to New York and New Bedford and almost immediately joined a conference about black equality. He was the only fugitive slave out of all of the other men in the room, so his input and memories were crucial to the

Douglass had the unusual privilege of receiving the beginnings of an education from the wife of one of his masters, Mrs. Auld. Her lessons were cut short when she was discovered by her husband who, "forbade her. . . telling her it was unsafe to teach a slave to read . . . because he would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master". From this experience, Douglass learned that education was his "pathway from slavery to freedom". In essence, the act of keeping the black man ignorant was "the white man's power to enslave the black man"(Douglass 1776).

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass details the oppression Fredrick Douglass went through before his escape to freedom. In his narratives, Douglass offers the readers with fast hand information of the pain, brutality, and humiliation of the slaves. He points out the cruelty of this institution on both the perpetrator, and the victims. As a slave, Fredrick Douglass witnessed the brutalization of the blacks whose only crime was to be born of the wrong color. He narrates of the pain, suffering the slaves went through, and how he fought for his freedom through attaining education.

The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass' own intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus my attention on how education allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass' view was very similar to that of the women in antebellum America, and the role that Christianity played in his life as a slave and then

The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is an autobiography in which Frederick Douglass reflects on his life as a slave in America. He writes this book as a free slave, in the North, while slavery was still running its course before the Civil War. Through his effective use of rhetorical strategies, Frederick Douglass argues against the institution of slavery by appealing to pathos and ethos, introducing multiple anecdotes, using satirical irony, and explaining the persuasive effects of slavery and reasoning behind keeping slaves uneducated.

Throughout Douglass's autobiography, he described what slavery does to white people. The stories he told are true yet so inconceivable that many readers were shocked how

Frederick Douglass struggled with the treatment of religious slave owners and how they treated their slaves as animals and property, beating them, selling them and even killing them if they became unmanageable compared to the treatment of non-religious slave owners who treated their slaves as human beings, who had feelings, and wanted freedom. It seemed to him after having been treated as a human being that he understood why religious Christianity of the land was just a title for ignorant hypocrites who were fearful of losing control.

People are not born racist, nor have the mentality to oppress others; rather, it is a mere social construct that causes people to eventually grow to hate, kill, and oppress others. In the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” author Frederick Douglass argues that both slaves and slaveholders were once innocent people. However, as a result of the slave-ridden culture of the south, they were both caught in a perpetual cycle of dehumanization-- a cycle that still occurs in current society. Being dehumanized is to be deprived of one's own proof of their humanity and to be human is to have a strong moral capacity or the ability to express even the slightest of emotions and many more. In the biography Douglass argues that

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an account of Frederick Douglass’ life written in a very detached and objective tone. You might find this tone normal for a historical account of the events of someone’s life if not for the fact that the narrative was written by Frederick Douglass himself. In light of the fact that Douglass wrote his autobiography as a treatise in support of the abolishment of slavery, the removed tone was an effective tone. It gave force to his argument that slavery should be done away with.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass (1845/1995), tells of many different types of inhumane and savage acts of slavery that were endured by slaves. Through his personal experiences, Douglass expresses the horrors of slavery by showing that the cruelty of slave masters and slaveholders was found not only in males, but also females, and not only in non-Christians, but even more in Christians.

Being a slave in the United States was not uncommon in the 19th century. There were many brutalities of being a slave including physical and spiritual abuse. Slaves were considered property and not as human beings. They were mistreated and kept illiterate. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is a autobiography written by Frederick Douglass himself that told of his experiences of being a slave in the United States. He expresses the brutality the slave owners and how he struggled with running away to become a free human being. The themes of his story include: the ignorance of slaves, the treatment of slaves as property, religion used as justification, and the victimization of female slaves.

Douglass’s own personal experiences reveals just how quickly slavery can change a life. On January 1, 1833, Douglass was reassigned to Mr. Covey, a sadistic man who enjoyed catching slaves doing something wrong off guard. In just six months, Douglass was forced to work under all circumstances. He proclaims that “it was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field” (pg 37). The results of this treatment were devastating. Deprived of time to rest and stripped of his dignity, Douglass was “broken in body, soul, and spirit” (pg 38). Eventually, it appears as if Douglass becomes depressed as his “intellect languished”, his “disposition to read departed”, and “the cheerful spark that lingered about his eyes died” (pg 38). From Douglass’s personal experience, readers can see how just minimal exposure to slavery can dehumanize a man into depression. Additionally, Douglass literally says that he was “a man transformed into a brute!” (pg 38). Through Douglass’s experiences, readers can certainly see that slavery dismantles the lives of its poor

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicts a vivid reality of the hardships endured by the African American culture in the period of slavery. One of the many things shown in Frederick's narrative is how slaves, in their own personal way, resisted their masters authority. Another is how slaves were able to create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system in which they were bound. There are many examples in the narrative where Frederick tries to show the resistance of the slaves. The resistors did not go unpunished though, they were punished to the severity of death. Fredrick tells of these instances with a startling sense of casualness, which seems rather

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass perfectly depicts the dreadful experience of living in slavery. From being unsure of the day he was born, to his first beating from a master, to the brutal and exhausting work, and to the joyous day he was freed. Besides describing his experience as a slave, he describes the toll slavery had on the masters and families of slaves. Frederick Douglass also includes his view of education in relation to freedom. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a good excerpt from The Classic Slave Narratives that can be considered a good historical resource due to the historical content it provides about slavery.