The Influence Of Slavery On Slaves By Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass the most successful abolitionist who changed America’s views of slavery through his writings and actions. Frederick Douglass had many achievements throughout his life. His Life as a slave had a great impact on his writings. His great oratory skills left the largest impact on Civil War time period literature. All in all he was the best black speaker and writer ever.

Humans are natural tricksters, beguiling others for benefits and survival; however, deceiving others is a skill possessed by few African-Americans and thus they do not survive. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, Douglass harnesses the ability to conform to the world of trickery and conveys his journey to freedom. Through his appeal to pathos, use of dramatic asides, and application of anecdotes, Douglass expresses the necessity of slaves to play the game of trickery to survive in the world of tricksters.

Therefore, he appears quite compelling when he attempts to bring out the connection between religion and slavery. Looking at what Douglass went through as a slave, it is unfortunate that his act of reading the Bible was considered a violation of the law. At one point, Douglass narrated that his master’s wife offered Douglass with help to read and write. However, due to “advice” given by her husband and the connection between the Bible and slavery, Douglass’s master’s wife turned against him and was now cruel and bitter towards him.

Actually, it made him even more cruel and hateful and he made greatest pretensions to piety. He remained as a cruel slaveholder, but he prayed everyday and he proved himself an instrument in the hands of the church in converting many souls (Douglass, p. 77). However, his unconvincing performance and pretending as a Christian made him even crueler. Also, since he was a slaveholder and a Christian, he couldn’t avoid having a double life. He was a mean and cruel master and a hypocrite for his slaves, but he was a faithful Christian for other white Christians. His cruelty and double life are showing readers how slavery can impact the slaveholders in a negative way.

Douglass’s narrative is a courageous work, as it confronts the slavery institution, and the misuse of Christianity by the slave owners

Douglass was motivated to learn how to read by hearing his master condemn the education of slaves. Mr. Auld declared that an education would “spoil” him and “forever unfit him to be a slave” (2054). He believed that the ability to read makes a slave “unmanageable” and “discontented” (2054). Douglass discovered that the “white man’s power to enslave the black man” (2054) was in his literacy and education. As long as the

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,

Many people believe that Christians played a great role in abolishing slavery. However, Douglass’ ideas about religion and its connection to slavery shine a light on the dark side of Christianity. Douglass’ account of his own life is a very eloquent first hand retelling of the suffering and cruelty that many slaves were going through. His account gives a detail of the ills that were committed against the slaves. The atrocities committed by the various different masters varied in intensity depending on the masters’ individual personality (Glancy 42). This first hand narrative gives us a glimpse in to the connection between religion (Christianity) and slavery.

Slavery is an institution that repetitively separates family members and close friends from each other, without any regard to those people. This aids in disrupting the heteronormative nuclear family relationship greatly. Frederick Douglass said that “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant…” and that “It is a common custom…to part children from their mothers at a very early age.”(pg. 1). This showing that most children that were born into slavery would grow up having no relationship at all with their own mothers. Also, a lot of slaves were born into slavery by the fact that “children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers,” (pg. 2) and the slaveholder now holds the title of father and master. With being torn from their mother at a young age and having your own father be your master, completely takes away the chance of a child that is born into slavery from having the “normal” nuclear family relationship.

In the 1800’s, slavery was a huge part of America. Slavery helped boost the economy and was heavily dependent upon by Americans. Slaves were treated as if they were not humans, but property. Slaves natural right of freedom was taken away by the white Americans. This oppression occurred in America, while they claimed that their nation was the nation of freedom and liberty. One of the slaves that would help change history was named Frederick Douglass, and he had a lot to say about American hypocrisy. Frederick Douglass was a former slave. He taught himself to read and write at a young age, and years later he started his own newspaper called “The North Star”, and ended up writing and editing most of the articles himself. Another thing he

1. Douglass taught himself how to read and write. At first, Douglass’s mistress taught him how to read the alphabet before her husband prohibited her from doing this. After that he started to teach himself how to read by reading books and newspapers, and how to write by copying his little Master Thomas’s written in the spaces left in the copy-book when his mistress goes to the class meeting every monday afternoon. However his most successfully way of teaching himself how to read was to make friends with the white boys whom he met in the street. He bribes them with food to get them to teach him. He also learned how to read and understand the meaning of the name on the timber.

“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.

Slave owners used Christianity as an excuse for the awful ways they treated their slaves. Christianity played a major role on the increase of brutality and violence that spirited the slave owners. The scriptures in the Bible were twisted in the eyes of slave owners to how they wanted to interpret them. Douglass had a powerful experience with one of his masters, Thomas Auld. Mr. Auld was not a religious person and treated the slaves very poorly. In August 1832, Auld attended a Methodist camp meeting and that marked the day when he became religious, and suddenly even more cruel. “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.” After becoming religious, Auld uses scripture to justify his cruelty. Douglass thought that with discovering religion and using it, Auld would become more polite as how Douglass viewed Christianity. Unfortunately that was not the case. Auld justifies that being affiliated with religion would not change a person for the better. Being a slave, Douglass found that slave owners found religious sanction for their cruelty. “He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.", was what a slave owner had said to justify why he beat

Douglass is a devout Christian, who don't believe that any slave owner could be a good Christian. The quote “He seemed to think himself equal to deceiving the Almighty… He would read his hymn, and nod at me to commence… Poor man! such was his disposition, and success at deceiving, I do verily believe that he sometimes deceived himself into the solemn belief, that he was a sincere worshipper of the highest God" (Douglass, p. 30) shows that Christianity in the book was broken into two different versions, the slave masters version, and the slaves. By this quote, Douglass believes that his form of worship is sincere, while the slave owners use Christianity as an excuse to the cruel ways they treat the slaves. By doing this Douglass defines and confines the meaning of Christianity. He believes that Christianity can only be sincere if it is practiced by good people. Douglas’s confinement over Christianity is so strong that he mocks the insincere white men who believe that they are religious and scorn overzealous slave owners. For example “the men would at times appear more devotional than he. The exercises of his family devotions were always commenced with singing; and, as he was a very poor singer himself, the duty of raising the hymn generally came upon me” (Douglass 30). Same went for the citizens in The Crucible, they believed that any witch couldn’t be a devout Christian. By this, they are

The two most important themes that shape Frederick Douglass’s life in An American Slave by Frederick Douglass are Slavery and Knowledge. When Douglass was a slave, he had no knowledge that there was anything other than what he had. When he began to learn, he became aware of the inequality that he was living in. Slavery and Knowledge have an inverse relationship. A man is put into slavery by depriving him of the knowledge that there is anything more than what he has. Once a man has gained knowledge of an injustice, he can never be truly enslaved.