Richard Frethorne Indentured Servant Analysis

Frederick Douglass Graphic Organizer 1. In the passage, Frederick Douglass reveals about himself his life story. He writes about his childhood in which he learned to read by exchanging bread for lessons, his thoughts on slavery after reading The Columbian Orator where he had gotten hope on escaping slavery, and how he thought about slavery and freedom after reading one of Sheridan’s mighty speeches. His thoughts on slavery from a young age is revealed at the end of paragraph one where he said “You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life!

Frederick Douglass, a former slave and famous abolitionist, wrote My Bondage and My Freedom in order to prove he was a slave before being an amazing orator and also to prove the power knowledge has when it is used precisely. Originally, Mrs. Auld thinks Douglass deserves to be able to read just like her son. Mrs. Auld later becomes “violent in her opposition” to Douglass’ reading because her husband puts her in “check” (Douglass 521). The author uses his words to appeal to the ethos of the audience by creating a seemingly kind and innocent perspective of Mrs. Auld and later completely reversing it.

You and I were born in two entirely different parts of the world. It is my duty, as a former slave, to inform you to the best of my ability, which I promise is not inferior to the ability of a white man, to teach you the likeness of living complete servitude for a fellow human. I can not expect you to understand the life colored people are expected to live. What you don’t understand, Captain Delano, it that the African American race includes real people who deserve the same natural born rights or the same rights given to any human at birth. I have been torn from my family more than once which weighed heavy on my heart.

Due to the success from the production of tobacco this allowed farm owners to acquire more indentured servants. Need for more land created conflicts with the Native Americans which meant the decrease of the Native population. As the rich farm owners acquired more fertile land the lower class and free indentured servants were assumed to obtain the overused or less fertile

With this, Douglass is addressing the topic of slavery and whether to abolish it or not. And goes about telling the hardships he went through.

He points out personal facts about how he feels when he says, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself or done something foe which I should have been killed”. The words that he uses explains the emotions that he was going through and to build an appeal to emotions. Throughout the time that he has been expanding his knowledge he runs across the word “abolitionist” which means it’s a movement to end slavery. He was always eager for someone to speak about it and he was ready to listen he says, “I did not dare ask anyone about its meaning, for I was satisfied that it was something they wanted me to know very little about”. He says this because he realized that the word is spoken very rarely and he knew if he spoke that word and someone heard him, he could get penalized.

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).

While learning to read and write ultimately helped him escape, it caused him suffering beforehand. More thorough understanding of slavery made him angrier with his masters, less satisfied with complacency, and more anguished at his position. What he read was liberating and crushing simultaneously, and he detailed this ironic duality in describing his anguished emotions at the time. The writings themselves also prompted discussion of the irony in hypocritically oppressive slave owners who claim to be Americans for freedom and Christians for equality but force the opposites on slaves. Describing his stressful emotions, which happened to be situationally ironic, creates an effective emotional appeal to sympathy similar to the childhood chapters.

In particular, when Douglass learned to read he began reading documents that contained argument against slavery and in doing so, he became conscious of the true horror of slavery. He writes, “I often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead…” (ch. VII). However, he continues, saying “...and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself…”(ch.

His beatings and lack of food were only part of his miserable daily life. Eventually Douglass was able to successfully escape this life and vowed to forever actively support the equality of all

“Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is.” The colonel, after ascertaining where the slave belonged, rode on; the man also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master. He thought, said, and heard nothing more of the matter, until two or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his overseer that, for having found fault with his master, he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment’s warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than death.”

Furthermore, Education opened Douglass’s eyes to the reality of his injustice as a slave; thus, compelling him to action as he recalls, “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. ”(Douglass, 2014, p.133) Education caused Douglass heartache. While attaining his education benefited Douglass, he could not relate to his fellow slaves. The fellow slaves had the ability to remain content with their current state of being since it was all they had ever known. Douglass knew otherwise and longed for the forbidden life as a free man, as it changed from an unattainable idea into an achievable

“Letter to My Master, Thomas Auld” explores Frederick Douglass’ view of slavery and Thomas Auld, his former slave master, in a smart and emotionally charged letter originally written in 1848 and published in the abolitionist newspaper North Star. Throughout the letter, Douglass uses his own experience as a slave to drive his views, often using sarcasm and a dark recognition of his trials to drive his own view of slavery; that slavery should be abolished and that it is inhumane and cruel. Douglass’ decision to publish this paper in the North Star allowed him to bring to light his experiences to push other readers of the newspaper towards an abolitionist stand point by bringing his first-hand accounts of slavery forward and explaining, at times

In Vince Brewton's article "'Bold defiance took its place': 'Respect' and Self-Making in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," it argues Douglass status as a slave. Brewton feels that the whipping of Hester made Douglass open his eyes about his slave status and wanting to change it. The article in some type of way is really about superiority, many of the slave owners wanted the slaves to know that they didn’t have any power and that the owners were superior. The worthiness of a slave and respect was crucial. This article spoke highly on culture, respect and opinions from the scenes in the narrative.

He uses these experiences to show just how unjust the treatment towards slaves was. As a child, he was not allowed to learn like many of the white children were, they wanted to keep the slaves ignorant