Frederick Douglass Spirituality Essay

In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, we follow Frederick Douglass’s life as a slave up to the moment he escaped. Frederick Douglass talks about the brutal and horrifying experiences, that he witnessed and experienced during his time as a slave. He exposes the atrocities and dehumanizing occurrences of slavery, with which slaves were controlled and made “brutes”. It almost seemed like slaves, themselves, were resigned to their lives of slavery and knew no better. However, throughout the novel there are certain times, where we can see that the slaves did indeed try to fight and resist against slavery as much as they could. There were several ways, in which slaves tried to resist slavery, such as maintaining their spirituality

At the beginning of the book, Douglass begins by talking about his life in the planation of Colonel Lloyd. He recounts how slaves would go to the “Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves” (Douglass, 23). He recounts how he would hear the slaves singing songs all the way to the Great House Farm. Douglass said, that “While on their, way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness” (Douglass, 23). He further says, that “the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do” (Douglass, 24). With the example of the songs, Douglass was able to show the deep despair and anguish of slaves. He demonstrated that through their songs, slaves could expose the evil and cruel nature of slavery, and if only their masters could hear they would also feel touched. Although, they did not talk about their miseries, they did try to fight against slavery, by singing about their sorrows and the cruel reality of

Douglass says that when he was young, his mistress, Mrs. Auld, taught him the alphabet and subsequently, tried teaching him how to read. However, he said that her husband, Mr. Auld, soon found what was going on and forbade her to teach Douglass how to read. Mr. Auld told his wife, that it was “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass, 38). He further said, that if Douglass learned how to read, “he would become unmanageable, and of no value to his master” (Douglass, 39). With the words of his master, Douglass realized that receiving an education could free a slave from the chains of slavery and that by not education their slaves, white people were able to control them. Although, his education from his mistress stopped, Frederick Douglass did not stop trying to learn to read. At the age of 12, he says that “the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart”, but he found a book at that time, in which a conversation between a slave and his master gave him hope to continue living (Douglass, 44). In the book the slave was well spoken and educated, so “the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master” (Douglass,