The Autobiography Of Frederick Douglass: The Evils Of Slavery

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Augusto Marco Garcia Professor Hawkins HIST17A 27 May 2014 Term Paper In his influential autobiography, Frederick Douglass helps pave the way for the early abolitionist movement using his own life story to bring forth the evils of slavery. He illustrates the hardships of slavery during antebellum America, focusing not only on the historical and economic issues of slavery, but mainly on the innate morality of human beings. Although many readers during this period were skeptic of the works authenticity, it brought the proper awareness to an issue in which corrupted America for many years. Frederick Douglass’s account against slavery exploits the brutal nature of slavery in way that shocked those who had looked past its harsh nature. By putting the reader in first perspective on the everyday life of a child born into slavery, he successfully uses the transitions of his life to open the people’s eyes to the crime that is slavery. We begin his journey in Talbot County, Maryland where he was born. Being neglected the privilege of knowing his age, we are left with an estimate of the year in which he may have been born; 1818. His mother, Harriet Bailey, is immediately separated from him to break the natural bond between a mother and son. A common practice carried along by slave owners in order to ensure control over those who maintain their land. As a reader, I immediately noticed how his use of being denied something so important and natural instantly introduces a sense of anger towards those who deprived a child of something as graceful as the love of his mother. Although they were separated, his mother never gave up the opportunity to see her child as she would walk 12 miles after dark just to be able to lay down with her son. Dougl... ... middle of paper ... ...tery breaking apart families. This is how he describes slavery to be such a virus to everything that it touches. Whether you’re White, African American, Hispanic, or Asian h he claims nothing can rid you from the evil that it brings. Such evil leaves the reader wonder if they were even truly religious, leaves you to wonder why someone who believes it is wrong to harm anyone but does so to someone of a different decent. Is taking someone’s freedom and making them suffer Godly? Is what Frederick Douglass leaves you to wonder. Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is Douglass’s ability to use the desire of knowledge as the motivation for his pursuit to being a free man. The desire to be educated and aware of the world around him was enough to risk his life for and his ability to obtain that and lead the biggest national movement against slavery is historic.

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