Frederick Douglass Slavery

Mr. Douglass had many experiences during his time enslaved that would have been typical for a Southern slave. His early childhood was like most Southern slaves in multiple ways. The master and slave relationship was designed to make slaves feel “… broken in body, mind and spirit” (Douglass, 74). Like all slaves, Mr. Douglass and his fellow slaves “were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and woman, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (Douglass, 58). Furthermore, in order to perpetuate a system of inequality slave families would be treated differently than white families. For example, to “hinder development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection” (Douglass, 20). Slave masters

Through Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe communicates to readers that slavery is morally corrupt, by showing the wrong in slave owner's actions, the struggles and heartaches slaves were put through, and how faith and religion ultimately contradicted all that slavery encompassed.

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.

Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” emphasizes less of the abuses of female slaves and more of the abuses of slavery in general unlike Jacobs where she mostly focuses on struggles from female slaves. Although Douglass doesn’t talk as much about women as Jacobs, he does mention female slaves usually associated with them suffering physically by the hands of white men. Douglass only explains the physical abuses on these female slaves while Jacobs emphasizes the mental abuses and tortures to where she explains to be much worse than any physical

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave is a great depiction of oppression of the African American race of people. Douglass’ narrative exploits the harsh and cruel reality of physical, mental, and dehumanization that the slaves faced. Along the way, Douglass witnesses many horrifying experiences as a slave and learns from such experiences how to prevent from winding up in similar situations. The first exhibition of oppression was with Douglass’ aunt when he watched her be beaten by Mr. Plummer at the end of chapter one.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a story about slavery and the many unkind effects it had on human nature. One of the things apparent in this story is the way the slaves were dehumanized. From the time they were born until their last breath every aspect of their life was painful and forced. Women forced to breed, children removed from their parents at birth, lack of food and dignity, and unnecessary killings are just a few of the examples that could be used for the ways they were dehumanized . Both mental and physical abuse were the slave owners’ way of controlling other humans and letting them know that they were not equal.

A description this detailed must have had the audience feeling the sounds scarred in his mind. In addition, slavery is then compared to the treatment of animals where America has been profiting off of them like auctioned animals. The discrimination of colored people has been going on since 1619 and it hasn’t come through my mind how it must feel to have no freedom and bound by the chains of society. Douglass throughout his speech remarks how America along with its founding fathers could allow such a thing that they wouldn’t want to go through. Going back again with the discrimination of them counting as human beings, just like the women suffrage, they have no say over their lives but rather they have choose the lesser of the evils, finding no path is freedom.

As briefly mentioned before, Douglass was born to a slave named Harriet Bailey. His mother was a slave, and in turn he was a slave. The enslaved people were stripped of any form of human dignity. They did not have the right to learn, the right to be his or her own individual, nor the right to love or be loved; in fact, each slave was treated as a chicken’s eggs: taken off and sold off, similar crops or used to the master’s discretion. As an enslaved person, the location or the environment in which the owner gave was not disputable and they were not entitled to even the most basic idea of comfort by any means. In Chapter four, Frederick Douglass portrayed the level of dignity imposed upon a slave by stating, “It was worth a half-cent to kill a “nigger,” and a half-cent to bury one.” (P. 22, Ch. 4) Slaves were solely financial entities for the benefit of the owner; nothing more, nothing less. There were many occasions in the memoir where a slave was beaten until blood streamed down her back or he was killed unjustly. They were dehumanized daily by their humiliating living conditions and cruel punishments; they were treated worse than animals. This cruel treatment deprived the slaves of their humanity so that they were never allowed to live their full potential. In the nineteenth century most free people recognized that slavery was wrong. The theme of human

Frederick Douglass's “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” analyzes the mental and physical hardships that African-Americans faced in the 1800s during slavery. Douglass exposes his life in a way that makes a constraining argument against slavery by presenting the details of the graphic beatings and barbaric cruelty of the slave owners. However, another compelling argument is how the slaveholders contained their slaves through mindgames speaks, which had an effect on both slave and slaveholder. Although slaveholders used their superiority to manipulate the slaves intellects through violence, factors such as illiteracy and mental

Douglass displays the horrible acts committed to slaves by both male and female

slavery not only through firsthand accounts of the cruelty of his slavery but also by breaking

Frederick’s oratory skills left the largest impact on Civil War time period literature. Douglass’s most significant autobiographical works include: Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave: My Bondage And My Freedom: and Life And Times Of Frederick Douglass. These three books are about the same person, and share a similar message, but are written by Frederick at different times of his life, looking at the past in different ways.

Before and during the Civil War, the book acted as a flame in igniting both sides of slavery. Stowe wrote the novel in direct response to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which enticed those indifferent on runaway slaves to capture the, and return the, to their owners. Afterwards Stowe, using religion and real-life experiences to back up her point, wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” to illustrate the realities of slavery. An analysis of the book and its author, by Martha L. Hemming, clearly explains that “the plot abounds with incidents that mirror one another.... It is this tradition rather than that of the English novel that Uncle Tom's Cabin reproduces and extends; for this novel does not simply quote the Bible, it rewrites the Bible as the story of a Negro slave.

What the average person does not know about slavery is all of the inhumane behavior that was tolerated. To describe these acts as cruel would be an understatement, Douglass does not hold back on the tragedies he witnessed and he does not hold back on sharing them with the world. For so many years slave owners comforted themselves in the thought of the romantic image of slavery, claiming it was God’s will to let these people suffer, claiming that it was not an extreme environment. The only

As previously mentioned, Stowe composed Uncle Tom’s Cabin to express the various views of slavery, and how it impacted the lives of those affected by this lifestyle. Growing up in this century, Stowe found the institution of slavery to be corrupt, with “the country requiring her complicity in a system she thought was unjust and immoral” (Uncle Tom’s Cabin). As Stowe did not believe in the Fugitive Slave Law—which required everyone to aid in the capture of fugitive slaves—she chose to hide runaway slaves, and her family promoted her drive to aid those in need. Stowe accomplished this feat through housing, feeding, and smuggling slaves to legal freedom in Canada, because it was the Christian thing to do.