During the majority of the nineteenth century, slavery was still prevalent until a couple years after the Civil War. This period is when slavery was slowly diminishing as time progressed, but not as much as anti-slavery individuals and organizations would have wanted, particularly in the north. These individuals were willing to put everything on the line to permanently abolish slavery, which was mostly still in existence in the south. Not even official government documents could eliminate the presence of slavery that existed, even if they were from the President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln. Therefore, extra help and force were needed, even if it was from someone that the people of the United States were not expecting. …show more content…
The controversy that resides is that an ex-slave had a great deal of importance in America. An ex-slave that was looked upon by most as a nuisance of the Nation. Yet he would become an invited guest of the White House by the President of the United States himself during the time of the Civil War and the drafting of the Thirteenth Amendment. I believe that Frederick Douglass, rather than Abraham Lincoln, is the person African Americans should thank in terms of abolishing slavery and offering them citizenship. Douglass was a huge influence towards Lincoln’s abolition agenda, and Douglass used Lincoln’s Presidential voice as the host to put his ideas of abolition into …show more content…
Douglass had little connection to his mother. They were separated when he was a baby due to slavery, and she died when he was a young boy at the age of seven. Connections to his father did not exist. The only thing that Douglass knew about his father was that he was a white man that left his mother immediately. After his mother died, Douglass was raised by his grandparents, Betsey and Isaac Bailey, until he would be transported to work in a shipyard that was owned by their master. His grandparents were the pinnacle of his life as a young slave. Although he did not have a strong connection with his mother, Douglass’s grandmother took the role of his mother and cared for him as if he was her own child. While his grandparents were his guardians, he experienced the hardship of slavery. Douglass’s childhood was harsh, but common compared to the childhood experience amongst slaves. He had his fair share of exposure to whippings and agony when he was young. However, when it was time for him to leave the comfort of his grandparents, especially his grandmother, he felt like he had lost a huge part of his life. His grandparents were all he could recall and all that he could express gratitude towards. And when his grandmother died, also around the age of seven, he broke down, and this is when his first realization of slavery settled in for him as a young boy.
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.
Let us begin with what is, perhaps, the most famous Douglass quotation: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man" (64). This sentence serves as the turning point, the climax, of both Douglass' narrative and his life. Up until that point, throughout his entire life, the world had been busy making him a slave. From the moment he was born to a slave mother (even though his father was white), the forces of slavery had been suffocating his humanity. When he was forcibly separated from his mother, he lost the human closeness of family. When he helplessly witnessed his aunt being brutally beaten and was subjected to repeated beatings himself, he lost the human sense of pride. And, when he was denied education and literacy, he lost the human ability to obtain knowledge. In all of these ways, society turned Frederick Douglass, a man, int...
Some of Fredrick Douglass’ experiences differed from Harriet Jacobs. Unlike Jacobs, Douglass never met his father and only meets his mother a handful of times. When he was seven he was sent to a new master who then sends his to a “slave breaker”. The “slave breaker” breaks his sense of
One question I asked myself while reading his autobiography is how can these ideas relate to all people? For example, in this piece Douglass told us that “Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, hired out on a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field work.” This quote shows that the slave owners did not care for the people they were hurting. Everyone knows what it’s like to care for someone very much, it’s in our blood. Now imagine having them ripped away from you, living a separate life forgetting your existence. That is exactly what slave owners did to people. Do we think that’s okay? No we don’t that’s why the readings apply to everyone because we all know what it’s like to love someone. Douglass also said that “There were no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket is considered such, and one about the men and women had these.” Most people have gone camping, or have slept on the hard floor before, and it’s not ...
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...
Douglass uses family relationships, starting with his own birth, to gain the compassion of his target audience. He never knew the identity of his father, but it was “whispered” (Douglass 2) that it was his master. Douglass mentions this to demonstrate how the “master in [many] cases, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father” (2). This was so commonplace that it was “by law established that the children of women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mother” (2). This meant that these bastard children were slaves despite their paternal heritage because their mother was a slave. The effect of this revelation was to shock and offend the morals of the conservative northern whites. Northern society scorned people in adulterous and interracial relationships. By portraying these Southerners as immoral and adulterous, Douglass wanted to cultivate in his audience a damaging opinion of southern slaveholders (Quarles ix).
In this narrative, Douglass, after very many obstacles are conquered, eventually overcomes the ultimate hardship of all time; slavery. At the time this narrative was written (1845), slavery was a common practice in the south, and it was nearly unheard of to escape its grueling jaws. One of Douglass’s first memories was seeing his aunt being tied up and beaten until the warmth of her own blood dripping down her back became pools of dried up blood at her feet. The screams he heard that day were unforgettable, and forever branded in his ears. This eventually led to his own beatings, in the same manner. At an early age, Douglass realized that he could no longer live this way, and decided to do something about it. His perseverance came in baby steps: first learning to read, next to acquire allies, and finally to make his move and never look back. If Douglass were to forget his end goal in any of this chaos, it is likely that he would have became swallowed up in adversity and let it consume him until he had completely lost his will to escape, or even live. However, keeping his end goal in mind, he was brilliant with his delicate moves to escape the sink hole that is
Due to their separation soon after his birth, Douglass realized that he was unable to properly mourn her death. He goes as far as to describe his emotional response as parallel to experiencing “the death of a stranger” (3). The role of a nurturing mother is essential to a child’s emotional development. Therefore, by establishing physical and emotional distance between mother and child, the slave masters were forcing the children into a deeper level of vulnerability that allowed them to be manipulated. Additionally, sometimes both parents were absent in the child’s life thus leaving them to fend for themselves in an environment created against them. In Douglass’ case, he had no knowledge of who his father was although it was suspected to be his slave master. This could have also been a determining factor towards why his mother was sent away as to not serve as another reminder to the
Lincoln is famously known for ending slavery. He Issued the Emancipation of Proclamation. The presidential proclamation was issued during the American Civil War. Lincoln stated in his speech, "I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of states, and henceforward shall be free." The states he was referring to were the 11 out of 22 states that still had slavery. It was because of Lincoln that millions ...
When first introduced to Douglass and his story, we find him to be a young slave boy filled with information about those around him. Not only does he speak from the view point of an observer, but he speaks of many typical stereotypes in the slave life. At this point in his life, Frederick is inexperienced and knows nothing of the pleasures of things such as reading, writing, or even the rights everyone should be entitled to. Douglass knowing hardly anything of his family, their whereabouts, or his background, seems to be equivalent to the many other slaves at the time. As a child Frederick Douglass sees the injustices around him and observes them, yet as the story continues we begin to see a change.
Freedom is something many slaves never had the opportunity to witness. They were simply uneducated, illiterate machines who did whatever they were told. But few fortunate slaves were given the gift to be educated by someone. One of these fortunate persons was named Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born a slave. He never had the chance of knowing his mother. As mentioned before, slaves were stripped from their families, leaving them no sense of compassion. In the book, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass says, "Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much of the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger."(2) Douglass secretly met with his mother about 4 times during his whole life. He said he never really got to know her being he was only a child and the never had much of a conversation. These sorts of incidents happened to slaves throughout America and permanently scarred most slaves and their families.
To imagine a life without your mother is hard to do for most people. Even if your mother was not there, you still had someone with you that took care of you as you grew up. Unfortunately, for many slaves this was not the case. Almost all slaves were separated from their parents around the age of one year. They did not know their age, their birthday, or their parents while they continued working for the masters of the plantations. Frederick Douglass was one of these many slaves. He always once spoke about this saying, “I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” Frederick, like most others, had no idea why someone would separate them from their parents, but continued working anyway. The separation of slave children to their parents was cruel, but it made it easier to hold the slaves and keep them working. When separated from their mothers, slave children would not leave the plantation and no emotional bonds would be created.
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.
The film “Slavery by another name" is a one and a half hour documentary produced by Catherine Allan and directed by Sam Pollard, and it was first showcased by Sundance Film Festival in 2012. The film is based on Douglas Blackmonbook Slavery by Another Name, and the plot of the film revolves around the history and life of African Americans after Emancipation Proclamation; which was effected by President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, for the purpose of ending slavery of African Americans in the U.S. The film reveals very brutal stories of how slavery of African Americans persisted in through forced labor and cruelty; especially in the American south which continued until the beginning of World War II. The film brings to light one of my upbringing
The word “slavery” brings back horrific memories of human beings. Bought and sold as property, and dehumanized with the risk and implementation of violence, at times nearly inhumane. The majority of people in the United States assumes and assures that slavery was eliminated during the nineteenth century with the Emancipation Proclamation. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth; rather, slavery and the global slave trade continue to thrive till this day. In fact, it is likely that more individuals are becoming victims of human trafficking across borders against their will compared to the vast number of slaves that we know in earlier times. Slavery is no longer about legal ownership asserted, but instead legal ownership avoided, the thought provoking idea that with old slavery, slaves were maintained, compared to modern day slavery in which slaves are nearly disposable, under the same institutionalized systems in which violence and economic control over the disadvantaged is the common way of life. Modern day slavery is insidious to the public but still detrimental if not more than old American slavery.