In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass, there is a vast difference between the lives of slaves on the plantation and the lives of slaves in the city. In Douglass' experience as a slave he had entirely different encounters with punishment, money, and basic needs depending on where he was. Douglass was punished as a slave many different times in his life, but the punishment for different offenses changed depending on where he was. On the plantations it was very common for a slave to be whipped publicly for extended periods of time. The owners and overseers of the slaves had absolutely no problem physically punishing a slave if need be. "Mr. Severe was rightly named: he was a cruel man. I have seen …show more content…
Slaves on the plantations would never make any money. Their work was work, and there was no pay. Even if a slave was somehow able to escape the plantation they could never last long without a penny to their name. In the south slaves worked in the fields and not in a trade, and a master would never dream of allowing a slave to keep any money that they did earn. In the northern cities, however, it was very different. A slave that did not work in the home would work in some sort of trade, and be paid at the end of the shift. The slave would then hand over all of the money to their master. Douglass did this for a while while he was living in Baltimore with the Ald's. "Most of the town and city slaves are hired out, to bring in money to their owners. They often have the privilege of hiring themselves out, by paying their owners so much, at stated times, -say once a week, or once a month. Many of them are employed in factories and work at trades. They do very well, for if they are industrious, they can earn considerably more than is exacted of them by their …show more content…
[. . .] after some reflection, he granted me the privilege, and proposed the following terms: I was to be allowed all my time, make all contracts with those for whom I worked, and find my own employment; and, in return for this liberty, I was to pay to him three dollars at the end of each week; find myself in calling tools, and in board and clothing."(Douglass 109). Since this was allowed by Douglass' master, he was able to learn a learn a trade, and save up some money. Although he still had to give most of it away, he was able to save a little money that would later help him. This was a great opportunity that Douglass never would have gotten on the plantations. The basic needs of Douglass, and of slaves in general, were often never met, but this was not necessarily so in the North. In the South the slaves were not seen as humans, but rather as property. So the things that the slaves needed, like food, clothing, and education, were not given. On the plantations the slaves were given a monthly supply of food and yearly supply of clothing. Neither of these amounts would last the slaves as long as they needed
They wanted to keep the slaves alive but not waste a lot of money so they would feed them enough to keep them alive and work (“Southern
The master had slaves in the field and slaves in the house. Being a house slave was more crucial than being a field slave. Fredrick Douglass got to experience working in both enviroments. Douglass grew up to working as a house slave and as he got older moved to working as a field slave. At a certain time in the morning, a horn would go off in colonel Lloyd’s farm and all the slaves had to be up and ready to work, if not Mr. Severe, the overseer had a stick to whip them.(Douglass, 346-347) Even though being a field slave was hard but it was harder for Fredrick to work outside with no shoes nor pants nor socks, pratically naked.
Frederick Douglass and Slave Girl Comparison For over 300 years now, people have been bought, auctioned, and shipped to others that treat them like slaves. In these two different stories, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Slave Girl; you be will shown how their themes compare and contrast one another. In Slave Girl, a woman named Shyima was sold to another family to the U.S, and was forced by the family to do basically anything they wanted her to do. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass is the story of frederick douglass, and how life was for him being a slave in 19th century.
(Douglass, 321). In addition to this, he owned a plantation that was enormous and he himself had difficulty to manage. The land he owns had a large garden that people from all over Maryland came to
Frederick Douglass was a slave for a total of 20 years until he escaped to the North on September 3, 1838. Douglass was in the care of his grandparents and then his grandmother abandoned him, leaving Douglass at Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. There, Douglass worked every day at the plantation and in the city of Baltimore, alternating every few months. While at Lloyd’s plantation, Douglass wore a sackcloth shirt, slept on the floor, and ate cornmeal every day. Douglass was put in the care of “Aunt Katy.”
Slaves got very little, horrible tasting food, which led them to starvation. The most fortunate slaves got three types of clothing items per year: two shirts, a pair of pants, and a pair of shoes (10). The not so fortunate ones, children for example, only got shirts. No shoes, no pants, nothing else!!! Douglass also says that they did not have beds.
Douglass gives us a critique of slavery by describing the mistreatments of slavery he was forced to endure. Throughout the book Douglass describes the physical abuse he endured while a slave but to more accurately capture the atmosphere of slavery he explained the mental abuse he sustained as well. At a certain point in the narrative he talks about how he was eventually allowed to work at a ship yard as a caulker. While he worked there he received a weekly wage but at the end of the week he was obligated to give all of his earnings to his master. This ritual was accompanied with the idea that if a slave is deprived of his earnings he will not desire them at all but sometimes Douglass’ owner would give him some money to encourage him to keep working but instead, “[I]t had the opposite effect.
Douglass encountered multiple harsh realities of being enslaved. For example, the ex-slave was practically starved to death by his masters on multiple occasions. In fact, “[He was] allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else... It was not enough for [him] to subsist upon... A great many times [he had] been nearly perishing with hunger” (pg 31).
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.
He wanted people to know just how cruel the people were that worked in it and allowed it to perpetuate in all of its cruelty. Douglass had sincere love for his “brethren in bonds” and used his narrative to spread that knowledge in the hopes that a wider audience would go on to vie for the freedom of those still in the inhumane system. He may have also wished to keep a narrative so that people would never forget how truly terrible it was to be an enslaved human
This shows that the way a Master behaves around a slave can be very influential, and Douglass explains that he was compelled to give all his hard-earned money to Master Hugh because the influence the Master had on him was to give him everything he worked hard for. Next, on page 10 of his Narrative, Douglass proclaims, “They never knew when they were safe from punishment. They were frequently whipped when least deserving, and escaped whipping when most deserving it. Every thing depended upon the looks of the horses,
Frederick Douglass was sent to live with Master Auld in 1832, a time where he could finally give a date to the events in his life, as he says in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass came to know Auld as he stayed with his new master, learning that Auld was as “equally mean and cruel” as his wife. Thomas Auld didn’t give his slaves enough to eat which was regarded as the “most aggravated development of meanness among slaveholders.” Frederick and the other slaves subsisted on less than half a bushel of corn-meal per week and very little else; thus, they were subject to begging and stealing just so they wouldn't starve. Auld was characterized by his meanness as he was “destitute of every element
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light
He became known as an inspirational person. Not many people are willing to go against what others believe, but Douglass was. His slave owner thought that it was “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass 29), but that did not stop him from pursuing further knowledge. Education has a powerful effect that makes others fear that one has superiority over them one way or another. Slaves had their basic human rights taken away from them because slave owners wanted them to lack the ability to form an opinion on what was happening to them.
In the book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass reveals his life as a slave and the valuable lessons he learned from his experience. Douglass wants the truth about slavery to be revealed and wants to eliminate the lies that portray slavery as beneficial. Douglass exposes the reality of slavery by criticizing the “romantic image” of slavery, showing the intellectual capabilities slaves had, and revealing the reasons why slaves were disloyal to each other. Douglass criticizes the southern, romantic image of slavery by exposing the harsh treatment and sadness that slaves endured. It was southerners who thought slavery as beneficial, because it benefited themselves and white society.