Oldlu Ku Klux Slavery

Both Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs had similar experiences in regards to their owners getting more involved with religion resulting in a change in the treatment of their slaves. Frederick Douglass’ slave-owner in 1832 was a man called “Captain Auld” by his slaves. Douglass describes him as a “slaveholder without the ability to hold slaves”. However, after attending a Methodist camp-meeting and experiencing religion, Auld becomes crueler. Douglass had the slightest hope that Auld’s involvement with religion would incline him to emancipate his slaves or—at the very least—be more humane and kind. Douglass was disappointed. “Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty.” The man became more involved in religious activity; it became a part of his everyday life. Douglass provides an example of his master’s usage of religious sanction for cruelty and brutality. Douglass witnesses Auld tie up and whip a young woman while justifying his actions with a passage of Scripture— “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Harriet Jacobs had a comparable experience. “When I was told that Dr. Flint had joined the Episcopal church, I was much surprised. I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after he

Though not prohibiting slavery, it warns slaveholders to manage their lesser men with an upmost vigilance recalling that they themselves are similarly suppressed by an even higher being. Nevertheless, Christian slave holders are deemed to be most unusually cruel. They alter the bible’s teachings in order to support their own practices. “Religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,—a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds… [It is the] dark shelter under, which the foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find their strongest protection” (Douglas, 117). By conjuring the most abstruse interpretations of Christian teachings, they justify their actions thus allowing for their purposeful ignorance. During his bondage under Captain Auld, Frederick Douglas observes his master consoling “religious sanction for his cruelty” (Douglas, 98). When he relentlessly whips a lame young woman and then exhibits her lacerated nude body for countless hours, he justifies his bloody deed with the Scripture quote: “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Douglas, 99). This girl’s supposed disobedience, however, actually proves to be helplessness, as she is impaired with the inefficacy of her hands which were burnt in a fire. Captain Auld finds religious vindications promoting his punishment of the girl’s inabilities while,

| Douglass says this meaning that his masters/slaveholders use their religion sanctions and support for their slaveholding cruelty. Pg. 67

From this document, it is clear that although after the Civil War the slavery had been abolished, people in the south still wanted to resurrect the “Old South”, and thus during the Reconstruction Era, the Ku Klux Klan was founded by a Confederate general and became known as the “invisible empire of the South” in which members represented the ghost of the Confederate dead returning to terrorize African Americans. We can see that to really achieve the union throughout the nation and eradicate racism, the U.S. still had a long way to go.

They had no clue on what they did to deserve such violence. “We wish to do right, obey the laws and live in peace and quietude but when we are assaulted at the midnight hour, our lives threatened and the laws fail to protect or assist us we can defend ourselves, let the consequences be what they may”, said a general from Calhoun. Black men, women and children thought they had been set free, they had laws to prove it, yet the white man ruled all, they were in control and weren’t backing down for the African American race. As time went on and the daydream of the frightening war played through the blacks’ heads, there were white men trying to get the African Americans a spot below the white Americans.

This leads to a major issue within the slave community. Slaves possess little knowledge of life outside the plantation or house in which they are working at. This means they have no idea how humans are supposed to be treated, and rather that a “god” would never allow for another to be beaten in such severity. This is an advantage that the slave owners held over the actual slaves. If the slaves were to gain an understanding of the world around them, the “religious” quotes recited by slave owners would quickly lose their worth and soon mean nothing as well as hold no influence over the slaves. Frederick Douglas was fortunate enough to understand this, and even addressed the issue in his life story, “What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference- so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked(71).” Douglas understands that the Christianity practiced by the slave owners was far different from the Christianity intended by Jesus Christ. As Douglas referred to it, the “Slaveholding religion” was prominent throughout the slavery era, not only was this damaging for the slaves,

Slaves were considered property, not as human beings, and were bought and sold as commodities. They were often listed in sales along with corn and land (document 5) and were leased and sold openly from slave dealer’s places of business where human beings were kept in a “slave pen” prior to sale. Inhumane punishment, such as severe and cruel whippings were inflicted on slaves for any minor infraction, often in public view. (document 2) The harshness of these beatings

Steven Mintz states, “A Master’s authority rested on the threat of physical pain. To discipline slaves, plantation owners set up private jails, confined slaves in stocks and shackled them with chains and iron collars.” Punishment was not only used to discipline slaves, but it was a way for slave owners to show their dominance. Slave owners asserted their power over the slaves in any situation they did not agree with. In “Instructions to his Overseer”, James Henry Hammond states, “The following is the order in which offences must be estimated & punished:1st Running away.

“Not only did slaves believe that they would be chosen by the Lord, there is evidence that many of them felt their owners would be denied salvation” (34). Levine claimed that the slaves uses their beliefs and religion as a “means of escape and opposition” because it gave them a “serious alternative to the societal system created by southern slaveholders” (54.)

They show a newspaper article displayed by a slave owner, that a Negro-man, who did white washing and fishing for money, was not providing the money to his owner and so the owner posted that no one was to hire him and that they would be prosecuted by law if they did. In the journal of Charles Wesley he describes the brutal whipping and maiming and killing of slaves, and was outraged by the fact that these atrocities were done and the only penalty was a payment of seven pounds and half that amount, if the master turned himself in.(cite). From these documents we see the absolute disregard of a slave being a human person. They were an object of use and nothing more. All codes were written for the slave owner and never for the

Frustrated confederate soldiers made their way back home after losing the war that they had been fighting for four years. These men formed vigilante groups, attacking black people. While soldiers did this, wealthier men who had avoided fighting in the war formed agricultural and police clubs for the same purpose; both groups soon took shape and evolved into one large group, known as the Ku Klux Klan and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest became the first leader, known as the Grand Wizard. The name Ku Klux Klan is derived from the Greek word, Kyklos, meaning circle. The Ku Klux Klan, often shortened to the KKK, was founded in Tennessee in 1866 and grew to be one of the most feared terrorist groups in the United States, before dying off in 1869, but later being revived in 1915 (History.com Staff). The Ku Klux Klan negatively impacted the Reconstruction period through terror, intimidating Republican voters, and killing Republican officials.

“...another Negro man was half hanged and then burnt for attempting to poison a cruel overseer” (The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Equiano). This quote comes from the personal account of a former slave, who is describing the typically punishment he witnessed during his time as a slave. Slavery was one of the most inhumane periods of American History. It was during this period that white people believed it was constitutional to own another human being. However, unsurprisingly, African Americans refused to be subjected to this form of torture, and often rebelled against slave owners and the white patriarchy.

Many people were shocked by the horrors slaves have endured. The people who believe slavery is wrong and are willing to fight for those beliefs are called abolitionists. According to abolitionists, a “white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.” They believe that the white men whip and abuse their black men because they want to feel joy and happiness. The white men need to feel this “joy” as a form of power over the black man. Many white men use God to justify their actions, as if they are harming the harming the black men for God. Abolitionists want to reveal this men, as they are tyrants that rule the Southern

At Prayer Meetings, Samuel Turner and Churchmen would carefully rehearse specially selected Bible verses. Some of which were altered to follow their lesson. They said that God had intended for blacks to be the slaves of white people all along. They continued that if slaves did not obey their masters, had a sassy attitude, were impudent, or were sullen towards them then God would be furious with them forcing them to burn in the fiery depths of hell come judgment day. They exclaimed that it was Satan who tempted them with thoughts of fleeing their masters and freedom. Turner preached that slaves must follow even the most vicious of leaders to be good children of the Lord. Meanwhile the “truth of truths” was being taught to white Southampton county children that they were always prioritized over Negroes and they needed to embrace this reality because it was God’s law.

"Slave owners had the right to beat, whip, brand, or imprison slaves for petty offenses or for attempted escape. Owners vied with each other in creating imaginative punishments, as historian Kenneth M. Stampp relates: A Maryland tobacco grower forced a hand [slave] to eat the worms he failed to pick off tobacco leaves. A Mississippian gave a runaway a wretched time by requiring him to sit at the table and eat his evening meal with the white family. A Louisiana planter humiliated disobedient male field-hands by giving them "women's work" such as washing clothes, by dressing them in women's clothing, and by exhibiting them on a scaffold wearing a red flannel cap" (Streissguth 13). How did slaves react to the cruel treatment of slave owners?