Miss Polly Baxter Conflicts

requested  for  admission  into  the  union  as  a  slave  state.  However,  the  issue  between  factions   of

This is the persuasion influenced by ethical inclination and authority. Being a slave always meant to obey the master at all times. “He was cruel enough to to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough to be insensible to the voice of reproving conscience” (27). Douglass’s master at the time, Mr. Gore, had prerogative and authority to do as he pleases; he used this set fear in his slaves. Furthermore, the ethical side is likewise distinguished. The slave owners wanted to keep the slaves ignorant and away from their families. “My mother and I were separated when I was an infant- before I knew her as a mother. It is a common custom … to part children from their mothers at a very early age” (2). It was improper and crooked to keep a child away from their mother and keep them

Different events, positive and negative, changed his thoughts and helped him become more mature, and a responsible person. Watching his home going to the work made him realize he should do something in his life. Once he started working, he learned to be respectful and reliable even if it took a while for him to change. Once he became more familiar with Penny, she starts to trust him. She starts to give more responsibility. With that in mind, the accident that Penny had changed everything. It ended the relationship between him and Kentucky. However, he moved on without much difficulty. At the end, he was still thinking about his father's words and what he said about the white boys. He never forgot him. Perhaps, the father also had a positive effect on

In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family In The Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger outlines a very unique African American family living in Nashville, TN accounting tales of the trials and tribulations that Sally Thomas, the mother, and her sons had to go through; and how in the end she accomplished her goal. The authors excellently executed the life of this family in an informational and intriguing text by explaining and comparing the different lives and classes of slaves back in that century through Sally and her son’s stories.The detail and the historical pictures in the text help give life and a sense of “realness” and credibility to the situations given to help breathe life into the story, making the story easier to understand and believe.

Slaves’ future lives all depended on who would “win” them and buy them. For Douglass, it was unbearable to observe human beings cry in desperation and pain. Frederick’s mistress was the only person, besides himself, that was able to experience pure dismay; causing them to ache together and understand the terror.

This book was a view on slavery between during the Civil War. It shows the different views of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. These two had very different views at first, but then learned to adapt to each other and eventually became great friends.

Although many characters in the story migrate to Pittsburgh to leave slavery some characters do not escape slavery in their self until they allow themselves to let go of the past and find their own identity:

Continuing with the theme of family values, Douglass shifts to the basic family unit. Their master separated Douglass and his mother when he was an infant, for what reason he “does not know” (Douglass 2). No one gave Douglass an explanation because this situation was customary on plantations. Douglass wanted to horrify his Northern white readers by informing them that slaveholders regularly split slave families for no apparent reason. This obviously would upset Northerners because the family unit was the foundation for their close-knit communities. Multiple generations and extended families lived together or near each other. It was unimaginable to the readers that a society existed that took children away from their mothers without reason. Northerners would think of anyone who was part of such a society as a heartless monster (Quarles ix).

During the 1840s, America saw increasingly attractive settlements forming between the North and the South. The government tried to keep the industrial north and the agricultural south happy, but eventually the issue of slavery became too big to handle, no matter how many treaties or compromises were formed. Slavery was a huge issue that unraveled throughout many years of American history and was one of the biggest contributors leading up to the Civil War (notes, Fall 2015). Many books have been written over the years about slavery and the brutality of the life that many people endured. In “A Slave No More”, David Blight tells the story about two men, John M. Washington (1838-1918) and Wallace Turnage (1846-1916), struggling during American slavery. Their escape to freedom happened during America’s bloodiest war among many political conflicts, which had been splitting the country apart for many decades. As Blight (2007) describes, “Throughout the Civil War, in thousands of different circumstances, under changing policies and redefinitions of their status, and in the face of social chaos…four million slaves helped to decide what time it would be in American History” (p. 5). Whether it was freedom from a master or overseer, freedom from living as both property and the object of another person’s will, or even freedom to make their own decisions and control their own life, slaves wanted a sense of independence. According to Blight (2007), “The war and the presence of Union armies

Having disobeyed both orders, Hester faced her master’s wrathful punishment; he stripped her torso, “stood [her] upon the ends of her toes” on a stool, her hands tied to a hook above, and then whipped her bared back with a cowskin until she dripped blood (340). Douglass consistently makes clear to his readers that which is rumor, conjecture, and fact. In this instance, it is fact that Aunt Hester had noticeably strict restrictions placed upon her nighttime and social activities and that being found with her admirer “was the chief offense” for the slaves’ master (340). It was rumor that suggested the master was also Douglass’ father and conjecture that he controlled Hester so rigidly because he desired her for himself. Regardless, Hester and other female slaves were usually denied any autonomy over their

In the essay from Dr. Faust’s “Community, Culture, and Conflict on an Antebellum Plantation”, she explores the balance of power between slave owners and their bondsmen, primarily, on the Hammond Plantation, Silver Bluff. She will focus on four areas of research, religion, work patterns, and payments/privileges, escape attempts/rebellion and external influences. She maintains that there was an intricate communal order among the slaves of the Silver Bluff Plantation. Using primary and secondary sources I will either verify or disprove Dr. Faust’s thesis. Dr. Faust has used the journal writings of James Hammond as her main primary source for her essay. I will use Dr. Faust’s essay for my secondary and writings

Like the oppressive civilization Huck’s bound to, slavery confines Jim to his slave status. When given the dilemma of either running away or being sold off by his owner, Miss Watson, Jim chooses to run away: “I—I runoff…Ole missus…pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn’ sell me down to Orleans” (Twain 43). The repressive civilization restricts both Jim and Huck’s freedom through Miss Watson’s reforms, Pap’s abusive relationship, and slavery prompting them to escape the confines of a ‘civilized’ society and to seek protection in the waters on the raft.

In the North opposition to slavery and the belief that the country can not survive divided were becoming the more dominant train of thoughts. Abraham Lincoln said that “a house divided can not stand” . He felt that either the country would be all slave or all free, but he knew fully that abolitionists would not give up. He also felt though that this issue would be resolved and that he did “not expect the Union to be dissolved” . He obviously thought that the South would give up easier, but he was wrong. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe she shows how evil slavery was in Document C by basically showing the cruelty that slaves had to endure and that Southern slave holders were evil with no remorse. She shows that slaves are mistreated and that this can not go on (P-C). With political leaders such as Lincoln believing that someone, particularly the South, would give in and authors such as Stowe showing the evils of slavery people in the North were bound to believe that slavery should be abolished. With more and more people feeling strongly about this in the North a conflict was bound to occur.

Overall, the speaker of “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point” reminds us that the system of slavery destroys lives. We see this notion play out in the narrative as the speaker talks of a female slave at Plymouth Rock. Here, we bear witness to her lack of respect for life that not only flaws her judgments as a mother, but perpetuates a sense of violence or

Douglass gives detailed anecdotes of his and others experience with the institution of slavery to reveal the hidden horrors. He includes personal accounts he received while under the control of multiple different masters. He analyzes the story of his wife’s cousin’s death to provide a symbol of outrage due to the unfairness of the murderer’s freedom. He states, “The offence for which this girl was thus murdered was this: She had been set that night to mind Mrs. Hicks’s baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried.” This anecdote, among many others, is helpful in persuading the reader to understand the severity of rule slaveholders hold above their slaves. This strategy displays the idea that slaves were seen as property and could be discarded easily.