Frederick Douglass Non Slaveholders

Frederick Douglass was born in a time where slavery was thriving and he was in the midst of it all. In his biography he tells of his life in slavery and how he become an abolitionist. He spent many years after seeking to improve colored people’s lives and end slavery. The book helps us understand Frederick’s character and what a slave what normally have to go through.

The white masters would not want to be accused of showing favoritism to their own flesh and blood, but would rather treat him just as badly, or even worse as his other slaves (Douglass, 1845/1995, p.2-3). Nothing seemed to give a master more pleasure than the satisfaction of his whip. Countless recordings of gruesome punishments are documentedby Douglass himself of both male and female, young and old who became fatalities, due only to their color of skin. Two men, old Barney and young Barney, are examples of unfair punishment due to inabilities to control the matter (Douglass, 1845/1995, p10-11). They were given the task of taking care of their master Colonel Lloyd’s horses, and if the horses moved in a wrong manor or did not look the way it should, their caretakers would be to blame, and penalized for (Douglass, 1845/1995, p.10-11).

Slaves lacked knowledge of everything possible to keep them of not knowing what was taking place in the real world. Their birthdays, family and friends and dates were all kept secret from them. Slaves endured the most savage beatings at the hands of their masters, were raped, and deprived of food, clothing, and sleep. They were denied education and the pursuit of knowledge.

Frederick Douglass was a substantial black leader during slavery and the Civil War. He was an abolitionist, author and activist. He believed in freedom and the rights slaves. Douglass discuss in his books the mistreatment and dehumanization of slaves. He reflects on the vicious beatings and the separation of the black family structure.

Slave owners felt that it was their responsibility and duty to dominate the “less fortunate and the less

To hold/ Their hands”( Ensler 143). The narrator was mistreated based upon how she identified herself and because of what the things she did or wanted to do. African American slaves were treated with little to no respect and they were seen more so as animals or property. Frederick Douglass

In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

They were treated like they were animals and worthless. Animals were treated and cared for better than the slaves were. Most of the slaveholders were not nice to their slaves on purpose. It was an act that made the slaves believe that

The Slavery of Learning In the novel The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, the author Frederick Douglass has made numerous points throughout the novel, involving the desire to learn and to expand his knowledge. As the novel continues he has the belief that the knowledge that he has come to gain is a curse. One of the quotes Douglass mentions is “The way to enslave someone is to keep them from all learning.” (Douglass 43)But knowledge is something that one can choose to accept and decline, and knowledge comes throughout life whether it is from a book or experience.

From the moment, they received the title, “slave”, each person was dehumanized, and stripped of their identity. Many slaves who were born into slavery, have no recollection of who they are. From babies, they are taken away from their mother and never told where, when or to who the mother was. They separated them from birth to avoid the connection from mother to baby, so they would not grieve the person that carried them for 9 months. This also was an effective way of dehumanization.

Slaves often do not understand their condition fully, since they do not know life beyond slavery. His unawareness of the liberating power of education bound him in a misleading bliss, causing him to believe that his state of being had permanency and to remain unaware of his injustice. However, once education had revealed to Douglass his ignorance, he says, “. . . I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy.”

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

Slavery can easily be determined as one of the most blatant acts of dehumanization. In the narrative titled “Narrative Of The Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass is easily able to portray this by quoting, “I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man”, Chapter 10 page 45. The quote overall does illustrate to the reader the narrator’s reflection to slavery as a whole as he states they were deprived of not only their basic

Thus, in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass is able to represent slaves as dehumanized property with the sole purpose of working their masters land until the day they die. Douglass also successfully represents slaves as intelligent people who wish to learn and begin to see the world for themselves, not through the eyes of a slave master. Douglass illustrated both sides of the spectrum of slave life, being deprived of knowledge and having, although against the rules, access to material to learn, to provide a distinction between how slaves are handled and how they truly

The level of education of the slaves on the plantation allow them to be manipulated by their masters. In many situations during the 1800s when slavery was prominent we can see that education holds power in society. Slave masters were educated and due to this, they were able to exert control over the slaves on the plantation. Douglass was self-educated and was able to analyze slave behavior and see slavery occur firsthand as a slave himself. In the book, we can see how the slave’s ignorance is actually bliss from the perspective of Douglass, how information like knowing how to read was withheld from the slaves and why and why slave-owners preferred non-educated slaves to educated ones.