The Impact Of Slavery In The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

The slave market was engrained in all aspects of the antebellum South ranging from fields to the farms, auctioneer blocks, and white households. It even influenced common consciences about how slave owners should feel about their slaves and the rhetoric they used when talking about slavery in general. Slave owners began to take on a paternalistic ideology in that they began to see watching over slaves and their buying and selling as a benefit to slaves that could not take care of themselves. The slave market therefore influenced slave owners self-perception, causing them to internalize their cultural surroundings. It also played into ideas of chivalry, gentility, patriarchy, and honor: concepts were endangered of alteration with each sale of a slave on the market.

Also, we will talk about the power that the slaveholders got from controlling their slaves and the fear that the slaveholders maybe had to understand how they were changed. Thomas Auld had been a poor men and he came into possession of all his slaves by marriage. He was a cowardly cruel slaveholder and he didn’t have the ability to hold slaves. He also realized that his incapable of managing his slaves. However, he wanted the power and wished to be called master by his slaves (Douglass, p. 76~77).

When slaves ran away, there were mixed feelings of anger, betrayal, and confusion among the slaveholders. They could not understand why an individual did not want to be enslaved. As a response, a hunting party for blacks known as Patty Roller characterized this extreme obsession as white men monitored slaves activities while enforcing discipline. In America, Whites were used to having black people immerse in their culture. When Black people left, their presence was

Gender and location played a very important role in the lives of Fredrick Douglass, and Linda Brent (Harriet Ann Jacobs). These two important factors effected not only their child hood and growing up, but what they saw and experienced. Age, and dismemberment also was a key fact in both of the narratives. These two factor effected them early on in their narratives, and in many cases outlined them from other slaves throughout their early years of slavery. Frederick Douglass did a great job explaining the harsh conditions of being a slave.

Frederick Douglass's Narrative, first published in 1845, is an enlightening and incendiary text. Born into slavery, Douglass became the preeminent spokesman for his people during his life; his narrative is an unparalleled account of the inhumane effects of slavery and Douglass's own triumph over it. His use of vivid language depicts violence against slaves, his personal insights into the dynamics between slaves and slaveholders, and his naming of specific persons and places made his book an indictment against a society that continued to accept slavery as a social and economic institution. Like Douglass, Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery, and in 1853 she published Letter from a Fugitive Slave, now recognized as one of the most comprehensive antebellum slave narratives written by an African-American woman. Jacobs's account broke the silence on the exploitation of African American female slaves.

Frederick Douglass’ journey from slave to freed man is infamous for its influence in the abolition movements during the 1800’s. In his narrative, Douglass uses the appeal of ethos in order to establish his stance on the issue of slavery. In addition to that, he uses many of his own personal experiences to not only reveal the hard life of a slave, but to also show that at the time, he had his own thoughts and beliefs about the injustices around him. This shows the audience that slaves are capable of thinking for themselves, having feelings and even have the potential to become educated and live as equals among the whites. Despite his obvious support for the abolition of slavery, Douglass keeps an objective stance and does not only discuss the wrongs of slavery in favor of the blacks; he simply tells the story of his life.

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.

Slavery is a very touchy and uncomfortable topic for many of us. It was a harsh, degrading, and painful part of American History, but due to the suffering of so many African Americans, laws were written and placed into action that we still live by today. Slavery has been a very important part of our history. It is the very reason that our country has evolved into a country of freedom and equality. The laws that have been written by our ancestors are why the United States is the melting pot that it has become with the diversity of cultures, religions, and ethnic backgrounds.

In the narrative Douglass shows us how slave owners and their sympathizers described blacks in terms of negative stereotypes to justify treating them as property. These stereotypes provided the foundation for the mythology of the plantation. Slave owners liked to think of themselves as the masters and even father-figures of a class of inferior, childlike people who could not survi... ... middle of paper ... ...her former slaves struggled hard to reclaim the right to define his own identity. To name himself was a huge accomplishment, carrying with it the right to tell his own story. Therefore, by him establishing his own identity on his own terms he catapulted his career as an abolitionist and his own claim to freedom.

"The proprietor of this thing, the mover of this instrument, the soul and the reason of this body, the source of life, was the master" (p.7). Masters also considered their slaves to be inferior and, t... ... middle of paper ... ... Gutman points out, "Slave families were subject to masters decisions and behavior, which might result in the sale and geographic separation of family members" (p.161). Once a slave was purchased their new home and family would be the slave colony they were brought to. Here they would establish new family, identity and friendship. In conclusion, Slavery in American Society is successful in providing critical evidence on the significance of the world the slaves made for themselves.