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Impacts of slavery in america
Impacts of slavery in america
Slavery and slaveholder in fredrick douglass
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The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave A man once stated “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground… This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.” This man’s name was Fredrick Douglass. The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave was an autobiography written by Fredrick Douglass in 1845. When the book was first published it was a best seller throughout the United States and Europe. One reason Douglass wrote this narrative was because he was such an eloquent speaker that most people had a …show more content…
Douglass accounts numerous events of horrifying vivid imagery to display the cruel nature of slavery. For example, in chapter one Douglass narrates in grave detail how Aunt Hester was punished for going against the master 's orders. “He used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. The louder she screamed the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…He whipped to make her scream, and whipped to make her hush (Puchner, Martin 519).” The second use of brutal violence in this narrative is when Douglass speaks about the overseer, Mr. Gore who he claims to be a grave man. He tells the story of a slave named Demby and Mr. Gore. As Mr. Gore was whipping Demby he escaped and ran into a nearby creek. “Mr. Gore told him that he would give him three calls, and that, if he did not come out at the third call, he would shoot him. The first call was given. Demby made no response…The second and third calls were given with the same result. Mr. Gore…not even giving Demby an additional call, raised his musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim…His mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood(Puchner, Martin 527).” It’s hard to believe that a human being can treat another human this way. Douglass then goes and states how this signifies the …show more content…
Physical brutality wasn’t the only method white slave owners used to abuse slaves. Douglass shows how white slave owners sustain slavery by keeping the African Americans ignorant. Slaves were not allowed to know how to read or write because the slave owners did not want them to read about the rebellions that were taking place around the world. Becoming literate would have opened the slaves up to the world and understand self-preservation, justice and historical events. They did not want the slaves seeking hope and forming an escape plan to gain their freedom. Douglass stated that becoming literate “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 (Puchner, Martin).” A second theme present in this narrative is how slavery not only damaged African Americans, but the white slave owners as well. It shows how slave owners thrived on the power of “owning” human beings. Douglass states how being a slave owner was harmful to the owner’s moral sense of health because it is unnatural for a human to own another human/ humans. He informs his audience of the horrendous behavior of a typical slave owner. He depicts his memories of how they slave owners and watchers used to whip, rape and vocally demean slaves. For example, Douglass gave the readers of the corruption of slavery was a slave owner named Sophia
Douglass was motivated to learn how to read by hearing his master condemn the education of slaves. Mr. Auld declared that an education would “spoil” him and “forever unfit him to be a slave” (2054). He believed that the ability to read makes a slave “unmanageable” and “discontented” (2054). Douglass discovered that the “white man’s power to enslave the black man” (2054) was in his literacy and education. As long as the slaves are ignorant, they would be resigned to their fate. However, if the slaves are educated, they would understand that they are as fully human as the white men and realize the unfairness of their treatment. Education is like a forbidden fruit to the slave; therefore, the slave owners guard against this knowledge of good and evil. Nevertheless, D...
Abolitionist, Fredrick Douglass once stated, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”(Douglass).
“The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected”. This quote comes from Fredrick Douglas’ book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845. Fredrick Douglas who was born into slavery in 1818 had no understanding of freedom. However, his words shed light on the state of our country from the time he made this statement, but can be traced back fifty-eight years earlier to when the Constitution was drafted and debated over by fifty-five delegates in an attempt to create a document to found the laws of a new country upon. However, to eradicate the antiquated and barbaric system of slaver would be a bold step to set the nation apart, but it would take a strong argument and a courageous move by someone or a group to abolish what had enslaved thousands of innocent people within the borders of America for centuries. There was an opportunity for the law to be written within the Constitution, which would support this freedom Fredrick Douglas alluded to. However, the power, which controlled this law, would as Douglas stated, “make that law respected”.
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997).
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may
The tone established in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is unusual in that from the beginning to the end the focus has been shifted. In the beginning of the narrative Douglass seems to fulfill every stereotypical slavery theme. He is a young black slave who at first cannot read and is very naïve in understanding his situation. As a child put into slavery Douglass does not have the knowledge to know about his surroundings and the world outside of slavery. In Douglass’ narrative the tone is first set as that of an observer, however finishing with his own personal accounts.
Douglass, Frederick. “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
In this final research analysis, I will be doing a comparison between the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” and the “Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” to show how both Douglass and Rowlandson use a great deal of person strength and faith in God to endure their life and ultimately gain their freedom.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiography written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1845. Frederick Douglass, a former slave and passionate abolitionist, provides descriptive stories of his life as a slave, all the way from his childhood to his escape. Chapter four specifically focuses on the unjustness of slavery, and Douglass’ central claim that there is no justice system in the slave world. In chapter four, Douglass describes the brutal murder of Demby and recounts multiple killings of slaves by overseers to support his central claim that slaves receive no justice, safety or security.
Douglass appeals to pathos in his narrative through many quotes and traumatic events that he experienced. He states, “I was afraid to speak to anyone for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for their prey” (Douglass 113). By creating such an analogy, Douglass provokes guilty and sympathetic emotion from his readers. He’s saying that he doesn’t even know who he can and cannot trust, because slavery changes everyone’s personas and
First off and most apparent is the physical damage of slavery. Slaves were constantly in fear of the lash of a whip or worse. They were given value based on how well they could work. They could be beat for the smallest offence or even no reason at all which led to paranoia among slaves. In Douglass’ narrative he describes one of, if not, the cruelest men he encountered. Mr. Gore was the most violent overseer Douglass ever had. He was cold and calculating with regard to the slaves. The overseer did not see people when he looked at slaves, but rather property with no rights or privileges. Douglass describes how Mr. Gore was viewed as an excellent overseer, “and if so, he is now, as he was then, as highly esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not been stained with his brother 's blood” (Douglass 18). Douglass uses irony to present to his readers the everyday cruelty of slavery. The irony is in how only those corrupt by slavery would view Mr. Gore was a respectable man, any enlightened person would view him for his cruelty and brutality. Douglass presents this idea to show his readers of the everyday cruelty and unnatural treatment of
In this narrative, Douglass describes his life as a slave in ways that is brutalizing and dehumanizing. He wants his readers to understand that concept. By doing this, Douglass writes, “I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with extreme dizziness; I trembled in every limb” (416). Douglass uses diction such as seized, aching, extreme dizziness, and trembled to help create a picture of the pain he had felt during his experiences of being a slave for Mr. Covey. Another example is when he writes, “I told him as well as I could, for I scarce had strength to speak. He then gave me a savage kick in the side, and told me to get up I tried to do so, but fell back in the attempt. He gave me another kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried, and succeeded in gaining my feet; but stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell” (416-17). Words like scarce, savage, and staggered place imagery into the reader’s minds of what he went through as a slave. One other way that Douglass shows how his words emphasize the message is when he writes, “The blood was yet oozing from the wound on my head. For a time I thought I should bleed to death; and think now that I should have done so, but that the blood so matted my hair as to stop the w...
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.
Throughout the narrative, Douglas gives numerous examples of the dehumanizing violence towards slaves by their masters and overseers. This violence is explicitly described in Douglass’ depiction of Master Colonel Lloyd and his overseer, Austin Gore.
The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass can be referred to as a memoir and writing about the abolitionist movement of the life of a former slave, Fredrick Douglass. It is a highly regarded as the most famous piece of writing done by a former slave. Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895) was a social reformer, statesman, orator and writer in the United States. Douglass believed in the equality of every individual of different races, gender or immigrants.