Frederick Douglass 's Life Of Slavery

The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass gives readers a detailed overview of the life of a slave who share his own personal experiences and struggles from a slave to a freeman.  Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot county, Maryland. He was the son of Harriet Bailey and his father was a white man  (Douglass 1). After living with his master for nine months, Frederick was sent to stay with Mr. Covey, a man who is known for “breaking down young slaves” (Douglass 34). But while he was at Mr Covey’s Douglass faced many struggles.

Frederick Douglass lived in a time of great discrimination for his race and belittlement form whites. The blacks were taken into slavery and treated as less than animals by their slave owners. Frederick experienced many unnecessary whipping and other countless acts of violence being showed towards him. Frederick Douglass showed the horrors of slavery by describing his life as a plantation slave and the life of other slaves around him on the plantation and observing the cruelty of the city dwellers who owned slaves.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, more commonly known as Frederick Douglass, was born around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland (Hagler). Douglass was one of the most influential human rights leaders and one of the most renowned abolitionists. By learning to read and write around the age of 10, Douglass was able to develop a greater understanding of the world that didn’t revolve around slavery, along with the desire to become a free man and civil rights activist (Hagler). Douglass is now well known for his famous autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in which he recalls his many experiences in slavery and the ways he dealt with the daily suffering. In his autobiographical narrative, The Narrative of the Life

Frederick Douglass was the champion to a lot of people especially those enslave at that time. It’s easy to imagine slavery but hard to see it. Douglass was inspired by his own story which then inspired millions of others. He is confronted with a challenging task in his writing by trying to fulfil the need. Frederick Douglass opens up people eyes. His book helps to see through his eyes, someone who resisted and fought for freedom for each and every one of us. The road of inspiration taken by Frederick Douglass lead to his freedom along with leading others to freedom.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” This famous quote is from a speech given by one of America’s most influential abolitionist speakers, Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, this great American leader led a life many of us would find impossible to bear. After gaining his freedom from slavery, Douglass shared his stories through impressive speeches and vivid autobiographies, which helped America move forward as a country liberated from racial inequality. Although Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave allows readers to understand what life was like for slaves in antebellum America, the most important and relevant lesson to take away from this narrative today is the importance of perseverance. Douglass’s courage to resist and learn paired with his determination to keep his faith and ultimately find himself, is something to which people from every culture and time period can relate.

While Slavery was against human nature and while Abolitionists believed in ending the practice of slavery, the South had their own reasons why slavery was needed in America and how basically they supported pro slavery. For instance, some arguments for slavery followed this so-called logic: “Sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. If all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment and chaos. And by comparison with the poor of Europe and the workers in the Northern states, that slaves were better cared for” (ushistory.org). But in a section from, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by him, Douglass describes some of the brutality that he had witnessed. “The overseer’s name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the woman’s heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder” (Douglass 44). This shows the brutality that even female slaves endured and while the Maser may have showed some sense against the cruelty that the slaves faced, it wasn’t enough to say that they too were also cruel. Just putting aside the inhumanity depicted in true

Frederick Douglas is a former slave, abolitionist, writer, editor, and orator. He was born in 1818 and died in 1895. Throughout Douglass’ early years he suffered physical abuse, deprivation, and tragedy. Although he had a rough start he overcame every obstacle thrown his way and became a great spokesman for his people. Douglass didn’t really know who was as a person all he knew was what people told him. Throughout his early life he looked at the life of the white kids and judge his life based on theirs and he felt that his life was totally unfair because he was not afforded the same privileges as his Caucasian peers. In 1835 Frederick Douglass overheard his master say that he was 17, and this was the first time he ever heard anything of his age (1).

Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery around 1818, will forever remain one of the most important figures in America's struggle for civil rights and racial equality. As an ex-slave, his inspiration grew beyond his boarders to reach the whole world. Without any formal education, Douglass escaped slavery and became a respected American diplomat, a counselor to four presidents, a highly regarded speaker, and an influential writer. By common consent Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) is recognized as the best among the many slave narratives that appeared before the Civil War. He amazed people when he spoke bravely in his Fourth of

Frederick Douglass believed that all people were born equal, but he also believed that humans were not just automatically born free. He deduced that man has the innate instinctive ability to mold themselves into whoever they wanted to become. So, naturally self-improvement and education were two crucial aspects of Frederick’s life. To Douglass the most horrific thing about slavery was the fact that slaves were totally and completely precluded from and form of education, which prevented them from improving themselves. Douglass worked exceedingly hard to obtain an education in order to ultimately become a free man. Although he still had to physically escape slavery his education played a vital role in his journey to freedom.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave was written by Frederick Douglass himself. He was born into slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland in approximately 1817. He has, "…no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it" (47). He became known as an eloquent speaker for the cause of the abolitionists. Having himself been kept as a slave until he escaped from Maryland in 1838, he was able to deliver very impassioned speeches about the role of the slave holders and the slaves. Many Northerners tried to discredit his tales, but no one was ever able to disprove his statements.

Frederick Douglass was born in February of 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery and eventually became a very famous abolitionist and author. He did not have an easy life. He faced many struggles in his lifetime but he overcame them all to tell everyone the truth about slavery and how demeaning it was.

During the eighteenth century, slavery was already well-established section of the American labor system. As the amount of slaves grew in size, they did not receive rights, and were mostly separated from their families. They were mostly needed for agricultural labors and had to work mostly from dusk to dawn. Frederick Douglass’s experiences as a slave was different than that other colonial labor because of the strict treatment he received from his masters, the inferiority to other humans that he felt, and the harsh conditions he lived in.

“My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage.”

Ironically inhumane. Maybe not ironic at all. Forced labor of humans being considered humane almost seems impossible. Everyone is human, they feel pain, excitement, emotion, actually maybe not emotion. Emotions are typically innate, sadness, happiness, but what about empathy? Slavery brought extreme empathy to some, but showed the void of empathy in others. Those lacking empathy can either be violent or depressed. They cannot feel for others, have no reason to try to find a connection. One major question exists, is empathy a learned emotion? Throughout the moving, enlightening, and harsh Fredrick Douglass autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave,” the former slave truly reflects on what the public is being kept from hearing about: actual slave attitudes. Written in 1845, around the time the strongest abolitionist movements were in the beginning stages, the recently freed slave provided a semi-live feed of what reality for the slave is truly like. With his stories of an abandoned childhood and an under privileged education, Douglass provides the reader with the feelings, sights, and smells of living in his shoes. Taking a retrospective view of the topic, one can jump to the conclusion of slavery being an obvious example of inhumane labor, and one that needed to be dismantled immediately. Looking at it from the point-of-view of an average individual living among others in the recently formed United States republic, one may be able to

In the narrative, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass recounts his childhood as a slave. Life as a slave is depressing and dehumanizing to say the least. Slaves live their whole lives oppressed by overseers, slaveholders, and society as a whole. Although, contrary to popular belief, slaveholders were also negatively affected by slavery. Not only did slavery change the way they viewed others, it perverted their morals as well. Essentially, any sane person given absolute power over another person has the potential to be cruel and treat others as less than human. The oppressive system of slavery harms not only the slaves, but the slaveholders as well as it morally corrupts the slaveholders by granting them absolute power over other human beings.