Black Beauty Research Paper

Between the 1700s to the 1800s, slavery was completely legal and reigned rampant throughout America, primarily in the South. By kidnapping and forcing African Americans into labor, Americans built up their economy and fortunes. Forced labor was not all African Americans suffered. During these times, African Americans were seen and treated as objects. They suffered subhuman conditions, were murdered, tortured, and much more.

SLAVERY IN AMERICA Slavery in the american south involved mistreatment towards black people. Slaves had hard working conditions and they hardly ever got educations. Slaves had hard working conditions. They were forced to work in any weather condition.

Slavery was an immense part of living in the United States from the 18th and 19th century. Slaves were seen as property of their masters and treated like animals without rights. In the minds of their masters slaves were seen as creatures that were bought to do their work. Slavery took away basic human rights from the people after they became slaves and slaveholders used punishments, rules and beatings to do this.

Frederick Douglass was an African American man that was born into slavery. He was born around February in 1818 in Tuckahoe Maryland. Enslaved African Americas were not allowed to know things we look over or take advantage of today. In a way slaves were dehumanized as a way for their owners to view slavery as morally right. Douglass shows the reader this by comparing himself to a horse that was bred, in a way, just like him.

Slavery possesses a cruelty where very few of the victims attain liberation, with a smaller number able to recollect on their experiences. Nearly 172 years passed since Douglass published his journey from utter blindness to become “his own master”, and the message relayed still resonates in the present. Douglass vividly describes hardships that slaves and free African-Americans must deal with. As I pondered on the imagery presented by the wonderfully scripted narrative, I immediately saw, on a drastically smaller scale, the issues Douglass presents to the reader, in modern day 2017. It appears that, as racial divides flare, the black man is subjected to punishment rather than the white.

Frederick Douglass throws light on the American slave system by writing about his view of slaveholders, the conditions of slavery, and how he escaped. He explained his experience with slaveholders when he states, “He was cruel enough to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough to be insensible to the voice of a reproving conscience.” (Page 32) This displays the fact that most slaveholders in the south were cruel and inhumane. Frederick Douglass shows the condition slaves had to go through, when he states,”I suffered much from hunger but much more from cold.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a very powerful and important piece of work when it comes to understanding the dehumanization and harsh treatment of the slaves in Pre-Civil War United States. Frederick Douglass uses crucial detail in his narrative to make the reader understand just how badly the slaves were truly treated and how profoundly unequal slaves were from everyone else during this time. Douglass uses many rhetorical strategies throughout his narrative in order to really shape how the readers are going to interpret the narrative, and to allow the reader to develop an understanding of his major theme of dehumanization. He uses detailed descriptions of brutal beatings, repeatedly mentions the contrast between the white citizens and black

The transcontinental exchange of humans in the early 1500s transformed lives and identities, for slavery led to African-Americans becoming enslaved beings and influenced their new arduous way of life. When the African slaves were brought to America this caused a population change that influenced their identity. Africans were now seen as slaves, which meant that they would work for their master for the rest of their life. As soon as they arrived in America they began working every day in the fields (The Atlantic Slave Trade). They had very little time to themselves since they were always working.

He announces “By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs” (1). Douglass incorporates this simile because it compares slaves to animals. This displays how the slaves are being dehumanized because they are regarded as being equal to animals. When Douglass is a child his “feet have [had] been so cracked with the frost that the pen . . .

He shows in the narrative how whites owners of the plantations or overseers, treated plantation hands as chattels. They used violence to keep slaves ineffective, immobilized, degraded and less than humans, and maintained their status as pieces of mere property. Apart from being subjected to gruesome cruelties, blacks faced array of difficulties. Douglass portrays the difficulties of black slaves throughout his narrative. The oppression and exploitation of white masters were inevitable a life under slavery.

Douglass became aware of the full extent of slavery and the system allowing him to escape. The quote "I have often wished for a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! it was the everlasting thinking of condition that tormented me,"(Douglass 68) shows the mental tool slavery takes on the enslaved, and the self-awareness and knowledge of the enslavement.

Douglass as well expresses that many “slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (Douglass). From this quote he compares slaves to horses, how horses are much more capable

In chapter 3, Douglass talks about how Colonel Lloyd treats his horses: “This horse has not had proper attention He has not been sufficiently rubbed and curried, or he has not been properly fed; his food was too wet or too dry; he got it too soon or too late; he was too hot or too cold; he had too much hay or not enough grain” (Douglass 10). Douglass’ describes the obsessive attention that his former master, Colonel Lloyd, paid to his horses. If the slaves in charge of caring for the horses made any mistakes, Lloyd would beat them up. Douglass uses irony here to show that Lloyd treats his animals better than he treats the human slaves. He states that while the slaves got little to no food, clothes, and a bed, the horses get much better

In this biography ,”narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass” shows how slavery doesn't only negatively affects not only the slaves but also the slaveholders too. Way back when slaves were almost necessary for a farmer in the south, the slaves acted up and the cruel harsh punishments the slaveholders did to keep the slaves in line. Slaves had a cruel terrible life but the slaveholders were almost as bad, from getting threatened when crop wasn't done to becoming a slave himself. According to Douglass in his article, biography of the life of “Frederick Douglass” slavery was one of the most popular and most expensive things on the market yet everybody had one.

Megan Swintosky Mrs. Nelson 5 January 2015 Honors American Lit Targeted Animal Imagery to Reveal Dehumanization among Slaves Is it moral to treat a minority with the same respect as livestock? In the 1800s, the time of Frederick Douglass, customarily, white people served precedence over black people, and enslaved them in inhumane ways. In the Narrative…, Frederick Douglass uses animal imagery of slaves and slaveholders to express the idea that superiority due to differences can lead to dehumanization, such as the idea that the enslavement of humans and animals both result in similar treatment, language, and behavior of slaves and their slaveholders. A strong example of dehumanization, animal imagery through language, was recognized and noted