Christian Juram, Anthony Moran, Jack Sauer
Ms. Keller
Honors English 11
March 30th, 2023
The Impacts of Frederick Douglass Hampton, Virginia: late August of 1619. Approximately 30 enslaved men from the Kingdom of Ndongo arrived on behalf of an English privateer ship. Why is this specific event so important? This event single handedly changed the outlook on the United States of America and everything that would transpire in the country's 245 year history. One of the over 10 million slaves who lived in the US from 1619 to 1865 was Frederick Douglass. Douglass is significant because he was unlike most slaves in the fact that he knew and understood the English language. Douglass showed his comprehension for the language when he
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Enslavement was no light punishment as it was common for slaves to be deprived of common necessities and simple natural human rights. Oftentimes, slaves were beaten and abused for not completing a task correctly, not obeying the master, planning to revolt, or just for any reason that the master wanted to (sometimes there was no reason). This can be seen when Douglass is woken up to his Aunt being beaten. In the memoir, Douglass said that, “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream and whip her to make her hush” (Douglass 4). In this instance, Douglass' aunt was whipped and abused for simply liking another slave. Captain Anthony thought that as her owner, she should only like him. This furthers the point of how cruel slavery was because slaves couldn’t even experience love without being punished for it. Another occurance of brutal treatment towards slaves is shown when Douglass is questioning his own existence. During his memoir, he stated that, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed." (Douglass 24). Douglass was so entangled mentally with the rough treatment that he received from his condescending masters that he …show more content…
Throughout the narrative, he describes the things he was forced to do as a slave, giving him credibility to speak about the horrors of slavery. Douglass describes how he “was able to command the highest wages given to the most experienced calkers” (Douglass 58). Douglass's earnings lend him credibility as they demonstrate he had to work extremely hard to earn a wage as a slave. Also, Douglass’ experiences with the brutalities of slavery give him the credibility to talk about slave treatment. He says, “At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass 27). Douglass saw things like his aunt being pinned up on a wall and beaten brutally when he was just a kid. These kinds of first hand experiences at such an early age gives Douglass the right to share the truths of slavery in
One thing that he wrote was about the lack of food that they received. According to the text it states, "The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork... and one bushel of corn meal." , (Douglass, Chapter 2, Paragraph 3). So, just imagine eating less than ten pounds of food each month, and if you finished it all before you would have nothing to eat until the next months. Another piece of evidence that he uses to change the reader's beliefs on equality is no bed to sleep.
In Frederick Douglass’ novel he talks about the things he went through and the things he had to go through and the things he had to see . He talks about about how he was whipped how he had cuts all over his body from being beat. He talks about the brutal beatings he had to watch other slaves go through. He was beat for not listening and not doing things he
Frederick Douglass was a slave that was treated horribly, and witnessed first-hand what horrible treatment slaves got from their white masters. He tells of many stories in which African-American slaves were beaten or shot to death for the tiniest things. Douglass wrote an autobiography, not only to tell others of the miserable treatment, but to show that slaves were treated immorally. Because Frederick Douglass’ purpose was to show the evils of slavery and how it affected a wide spectrum of people, he showed that young slaves were mistreated as well as old slaves and that females were subject to abuse just like the males. Frederick Douglass was born and raised a slave, which means that he had personal experience in what slaves went through because he went through almost the same troubles.
He tells us about his struggles and how he reached freedom. According to Douglass, the slaves were treated poorly while the whites had it all. This proves that they were not equal. The slaves also had no choice but to do whatever here masters wished. This shows they had no rights.
In the narrative, it states, “The more I read, the more I was lead to abhor and detest my enslavers.” This demonstrates that when Douglass learned about how the slaveholders were treating
He also struggled for stopping the racial violation and helped the fleeing slaves to escape. One of the main point of Douglass’s speech was slavery should be stopped. And he also argued that what’s the point of celebrating Fourth July if the term liberty doesn’t apply equally for all? He also exhibited that a slave is also a human being like others. If white people have the right to utilize all the rights and facilities as a citizen, on the whole as a human, why will the black people lead a life as sub human?
With this, Douglass is addressing the topic of slavery and whether to abolish it or not. And goes about telling the hardships he went through.
Douglass uses paradox to demonstrate that slavery degragrates the slaverholder. When Douglass under Mr. Sever’s care he described that: “He was less cruel, less profane… He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. ”(Douglass 24). Most slaveholders are characterized to be cruel and inhuman because of the whipping and the way they treated the slaves.
Douglass encountered multiple harsh realities of being enslaved. For example, the ex-slave was practically starved to death by his masters on multiple occasions. In fact, “[He was] allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else... It was not enough for [him] to subsist upon... A great many times [he had] been nearly perishing with hunger” (pg 31).
Douglass tells about his own childhood and how his father might have been a slaveholder. He explains
In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.
His beatings and lack of food were only part of his miserable daily life. Eventually Douglass was able to successfully escape this life and vowed to forever actively support the equality of all
This shows that the way a Master behaves around a slave can be very influential, and Douglass explains that he was compelled to give all his hard-earned money to Master Hugh because the influence the Master had on him was to give him everything he worked hard for. Next, on page 10 of his Narrative, Douglass proclaims, “They never knew when they were safe from punishment. They were frequently whipped when least deserving, and escaped whipping when most deserving it. Every thing depended upon the looks of the horses,
He had a slaveholder who was always “cursing, raving, cutting, and slashing among the slaves of the field, in the most frightful manner” (29). Although he was rarely beat, he constantly have to go without food and be in the cold. There was also Mr. Covey, who was a notorious “slave breaker” who gave Douglass “ a very severe whipping,
He became known as an inspirational person. Not many people are willing to go against what others believe, but Douglass was. His slave owner thought that it was “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass 29), but that did not stop him from pursuing further knowledge. Education has a powerful effect that makes others fear that one has superiority over them one way or another. Slaves had their basic human rights taken away from them because slave owners wanted them to lack the ability to form an opinion on what was happening to them.