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Dehumanization of black slaves
The treatment of slaves in America
The treatment of slaves in America
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Annotations from Frederick Douglass By far the large part of the slaves know as little of their age as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. [Ch. 1, p. 39.] ‘Ignorant’ is the key word in this passage. Slaves seemed to be valued because of their ignorance. As long as they followed their master’s wishes and didn’t raise any questions, they were being “manageable slaves”. Not letting the slaves have their own identities and background made it easier for their masters to control them. It is also interesting how Douglass compares a slave to a horse. It may be upsetting to the reader to see a human treated the same way as a horse. This dehumanizes the slaves in a way. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. [Ch. 1, p. 40.] It was rumored that Captain Anthony was Frederick’s father. Clues point to this by the kindness of Captain Anthony’s daughter to Frederick or the beatings and rape of Frederick’s aunt. In any case, there was no mention of it, especially to Frederick. He was not allowed to have this kind of knowledge. His master feared that if Frederick knew of his background, he would be deemed useless as a slave. Knowledge was a thing valued by slaves and feared by their masters. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery. [Ch. 2, p. 47.] Douglass is speaking here of the songs he used to hear on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. When he was a slave he was more sensitive to this music than any other parts of slavery. They had always filled him with sadness even after he became free. He starts to realize as a young boy after hearing these songs, just how bitter and depressed slavery makes a person. It is at this point where he can first recall slavery as inhumane. (2nd) The slaveholders have been known to send in spies among their slaves, to ascertain their views and feelings in regard to their condition. (1st) The frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head. [Ch. 3, p. 50.] Frederick as well as the other slaves learned some of the horrible tricks the masters could play on them. One example is the way the slaves spend holidays. The masters like to ...
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...in by Mr. Covey. He realized that any white man who wanted to succeed in whipping him would have to kill him. He may have been a slave physically, but in his heart he was free. He told me, If I would be happy, I must lay out no plans for the future. [Ch. 11, p. 96.] Again, a reoccurring point in the narrative about the happiness of the slave. Master Thomas claims that if Frederick wants to remain “happy”, he should forget about freedom and just realize he will always be a slave. Unfortunately for his master, it was too late for Frederick to go back. He had learned too much. He had seen the horrors of slavery and knew there was much more for him. I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every colored man cause for distrust. [Ch. 11, p. 99.] What else could Frederick feel after being a slave his entire life? No white man ever gave him a reason to have trust. There had been nothing but cruel, lying white men surrounding Frederick. As for his won race, he was still suspect. After being told on for trying to escape, he became wary of his fellow slaves. He may have been in a free land, but he had learned the ways of man and knew what he had to do to survive.
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, depicts a vivid reality of the hardships endured by the African American culture in the period of slavery. One of the many things shown in Frederick's narrative is how slaves, in their own personal way, resisted their masters authority. Another is how slaves were able to create their own autonomous culture within the brutal system in which they were bound. There are many examples in the narrative where Frederick tries to show the resistance of the slaves. The resistors did not go unpunished though, they were punished to the severity of death. Fredrick tells of these instances with a startling sense of casualness, which seems rather odd when comprehending the content of them. He does this though, not out of desensitization, but to show that these were very commonplace things that happened all over the South at the time.
Moreover, Frederick Douglass never ever in his entire life did he get to see his White father. Well he only knew that his father was but, nothing else. But he believed that’s his White father was his master. His master’s name was Aaron Anthony. So when Frederick Douglass was left abounded he had to leave with his grandmother to a plantation in Maryland. When Douglass the age of seven he started to witness slavery and racism. He witnessed firsthand brutal painful whippings to his fellow friends.
Douglass was not aware of what slaves were and why they were treated in a bad condition before he learns how to read. He was deeply saddened upon discovering the fact that slaves were not given the rights every human being should have. In an effort to clarify Douglass’s feelings of anguish, he states: “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity” (Douglass 146). The fact that other slaves are content with their lives is what brings awareness to him because he knows that he is stripped of basic human rights. He envies his fellow slaves due to the reason that they are pleased with the life he cannot live to like anymore. Also, he is often wishing he never learned how to read because he doesn’t want to burden about his life. Douglass knows more about the disturbing conditions than most of the slaves around him, but he greatly regrets it. Before he started reading, he lived very much in contentment and now he cannot stand the fact of being
Now on the other had Frederick was born into slavery. He was living in Maryland, born to a white man unknown to him and his mother was also a slave. Frederick pursued how to read and write while being a slave but found that it was an uphill battle, because no slaves were permitted to be educated. Frederick persevered and learned to read and write but prior to his escape up North his moral was very low because being educated as a slave he states, “It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out”(Narrative of the Life of F.D. Pg 1073 col.2). Can you imagine this; a slave that can now read and write all of a sudden wishes the opposite? It’s tough to stomach the grief that he must have felt during that time.
Frederick Douglass emphasizes the dehumanization aspect of slavery throughout his narrative. As is the general custom in slavery, Douglass is separated from his mother early in infancy and put under the care of his grandmother. He recalls having met his mother several times, but only during the night. She would make the trip from her farm twelve miles away just to spend a little time with her child. She dies when Douglass is about seven years old. He is withheld from seeing her in her illness, death, and burial. Having limited contact with her, the news of her death, at the time, is like a death of a stranger. Douglass also never really knew the identity of his father and conveys a feeling of emptiness and disgust when he writes, "the whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose" (Douglass, 40). Douglass points out that many slave children have their masters as their father. In these times, frequently the master would take advantage of female slaves and the children born to the slave w...
In a preface of Douglass' autobiography, William Lloyd Garrison writes, "I am confident that it is essentially true in all its statements; that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing exaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination; that it comes short of the reality, rather than overstates a single fact in regard to SLAVERY AS IT IS."(Garrison, 34). The significance of this statement validates and promises that Douglass' words are nothing but the truth. This made the narrative more marketable to the white audience and people were listening. Douglass realized that he did not need assurance from white people to be respected. That's why he addressed his master for all the wrong things done to him. Slaves are looked as not human. Douglass completes his journey from slave to man when he creates his own identity. He speaks out, fighting as an abolitionist and finally becoming an author. Douglass tells his story not simply as a search for fr...
Slavery consisted of numerous inhumane horrors completed to make its victims feel desolated and helpless. Many inescapable of these horrors of slavery are conveyed in the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. The entire prospect of the duration of the story is to plan an escape from the excruciating conditions awaiting Douglass as a slave. When his escape is finally executed, unpredictable emotions and thoughts overwhelm him. Within the conclusion of his narrative (shown in the given passage), Frederick Douglass uses figurative language, diction, and syntax to portray such states of mind he felt after escaping slavery: relief, loneliness, and paranoia.
A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Most people do not understand what can make a person want to kill multiple people for no reason other than own satisfactional gain. In actuality serial killers have been studied for over hundreds of years, and the information that has been documented continues to grow. The research that I have gathered about serial killers focuses on their childhood development, the differences and similarities between men and female serial kills, and finally general information on how their brains operate and their motives for committing such harmful acts.
It was at this time, that Fredrick did not even know his own age. As mentioned in Fredrick Douglass’s memoir, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, Douglass states “it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slave this ignorant” (Douglass, 15). This is the first scenario in which we noticed the dehumanizing practices of slavery to occur. During the time of Fredrick’s childhood, he noticed that white children could tell their age, and he himself was not able to. He was not able to make any inquiries of it to his master because slaves were not given that right. The act of a slave owner to keep their slave ignorant shows one example of how slaves were dehumanized. They were stripped of knowing themselves as people because they were designed to be property to their owners. The fact that he could not have information and knowledge of simple things made him unhappy and led him to believe that the dehumanization process occurs when the slave owner tries to keep the slave ignorant. It was something shocking for Fredrick to hear about the nature of slavery, but in hearing so, helped him establish a stronger mindset to
As both the narrator and author of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself” Frederick Douglass writes about his transition from a slave to a well educated and empowered colored young man. As a skilled and spirited man, he served as both an orator and writer for the abolitionist movement, which was a movement to the abolishment of slavery. At the time of his narrative’s publication, Douglass’s sole goal of his writings was to essentially prove to those in disbelief that an articulate and intelligent man, such as himself, could have,in fact, been enslaved at one point in time. While, Douglass’ narrative was and arguably still is very influential, there are some controversial aspects of of this piece, of which Deborah McDowell mentions in her criticism.
Afterwards, her attitude changed towards Frederick and other slaves. She started to become cruel to the slaves, and Frederick surveys this demoralizing metamorphosis. “Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instructions which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master” (Douglass 873). Frederick recognized how fast a person can change their views on slavery, but this is point at which he discovers that knowledge the key to freedom.
Frederick Douglass’s narrative unveils a large number of ways in which African Americans suffered under the oppression of slavery. For instance, many slaves including Douglass himself, did not know their own birthdays or much of their own family history. This was most likely the result of slave children being separated from their actual blood relatives either at birth or due to being sold to different slave owners.
One of the key arguments in “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” as well as in other narratives about slaves is inequality. Douglass attempts to show us how African American slaves were still human beings like their white counterparts, there have been numerous instances where it is shown that many whites did not want to accept slaves as true humans. Frederick Douglass also perceived racial inequalities at a very young age and notes “I do not remember ever met a slave who could tell his or her birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (13). Douglass also takes the argument of inequality one step further by making remarks upon the difference between the white and black children. Instead of accepting the difference that he is aware of even the minor details of inequalities. These descriptions of inequality are stated in the first half of the book and help us as readers realize the true “worth” of a slave. Frederick Douglass states “We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep and swine. There w...
The three types of multicide are serial killers, mass murderers, and spree killers. Serial killers are defined by the F.B.I. as at least three murders in at least three different locations with an emotional cooling-off period between kills. Some other sources disagree and claim that as many as 5 victims are needed for a killer to qualify as a serial killer. Mass murderers are defined by the F.B.I. as any murder who kills four or more victims at one place and time. Other sources claim this number to be any more than three. While spree murderers are defined by the FBI as a single event with two or more locations and no cooling off period, however
What is a serial killer? Typically the average serial killer ranges between the ages of 20’s-30’s, usually male, and caucasian. During childhood they experience bedwetting past 10 years old, like to play with fire, are very cruel to animals, and experienced something traumatic as a child.