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Essay On Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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“"We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” - Martin Luther King, Jr. There is not a single institution that has caused more suffering, more pain, than the institution of slavery. Slavery is culpable for immense death, horrific physical and sexual abuse, and generational trauma that still persists today. This abomination is dissected in its entirety, through the various slave narratives and memoirs that have been inked out. These narratives share many aspects among them. The most depicted aspects are, the destruction of familial bonds which creates tremendous trauma, the dehumanization of human beings and the resistance and strength the enslaved African Americans employ against their oppressors. In nearly all narratives of enslaved …show more content…

In the narrative of “The Life of Frederick Douglass”, it states “[food was] put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called… Like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush” This text reveals that slaves were basically like animals to their masters and treated as such. Douglas would also state that they were branded and that they lived in unsanitary conditions with little food. Another narrative that has the same nature of treatment is, “Incidents In the Life of a Slave Girl”. In this text the author, a slave girl, states that a favored punishment that a master would employ against his slaves was “to tie a rope around a man’s body, and suspend him from the ground. A fire was kindled over him, from which was suspended a piece of fat pork. As this cooked, the scalding drops of fat continually fell on the bare flesh.” This clearly shows that the torture given to enslaved Africans is not even fit for animals. Furthermore, the author of this text remarks on how slaves could not even choose who they fall in love with. Lastly, we can even see the trend of dehumanization and belittlement in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia. Jefferson argues, “blacks are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind." Considering that Jefferson considered himself a benevolent slave master; which was the exception not the norm, demonstrates that slave masters were much

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In paragraph 2, he alludes to the Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson helped form. The Declaration states “that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” By alluding to the Declaration Banneker shows how Jefferson, along with others who formed the Constitution, are hypocrites. Jefferson wrote that all men were created equal, and they all had unalienable rights, yet they owned slaves that were not treated equal, and not given any rights. These colonists also fought against oppression, yet they now partake in the oppression of blacks.

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William Cohen, “Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” Journal of American History 56, no 3 (1969): 503-526 Thomas Jefferson is one of the pioneers who laid the foundation for what is now The United States of America. Jefferson is also reflected to be one of the most controversial because of his juxtaposing political posture of race and slavery compared to his personal beliefs on this same matter. He, along with other “Founding Fathers,” owned slaves but also believed that all men are equal and are to be treated equally. William Cohen in his article, “Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery,” talks about the complexity and contradictions of Thomas Jefferson through his political actions as compared to his personal practices. Jefferson was complex

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The United States, a nation founded on the beliefs of equality, upholds an inhumane enslavement of African Americans that opposes its values. In 1791, Benjamin Banneker, a free African American, sends a letter to Thomas Jefferson urging him to reconsider his stance on slavery. In an excerpt from his letter to Thomas Jefferson, Banneker’s personal criticisms of slavery are presented through the use of varied diction, knowledgeable allusions, and impelling appeals illuminating the hypocrisy of the United States’ institution of slavery and their foundations of equality. Banneker begins his letter (Lines 1-30) entreating Jefferson to reflect on the hardships he faced to achieve liberty. Banneker starts with “sir” and continually refers to Jefferson

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In his letter to Thomas Jefferson, a former slave and author Benjamin Banneker cultivates a central argument that institutionalized slavery is a great injustice to the ideals set forth by the United States, contradicting the norms upheld by the Declaration of Independence. To truly understand and resolve the conflict of international enslavement, secretary of state Thomas Jefferson must place himself in the view of current slaves to interpret the harsh and oppressive systems to cultivate improved societal reform. Banneker solidifies this claim by analyzing the commonalities between the harsh treatment of US citizens during British tyranny to the active system of enslavement, ironically citing the development of the Declaration of Independence

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass delves insightfully within the life of a slave, revealing the natures of power and how it affects those who are incapable of handling it properly. In this record, Douglass demonstrates that the system of slavery not only pulverizes the slave, but also the slaveholders. The power that the slaveholders possess, one which is devoid of responsibility, has a dehumanizing impact on them; annihilating their ethics and sense of self-conviction. It breaks the frailest hearts and finest emotions transforming them into those of a devil.

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A common misconception that Thomas Jefferson brings into question is his ethical views on slavery. His statement in the Declaration of Independence, “...All men are created equal”, completely contradicts his attitude on slavery. He was an advocate for human rights, yet he himself owned slaves that he inherited and purchased. Among the numerous slaves he owned, Jefferson freed only a handful. Douglas L. Wilson and Paul Finkelman both analyze his documents and form conclusions of his views on human rights and equality.

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16) Thomas Jefferson and the Anti-Federalists believed in a strict interpretation of the Constitution, more power to the states, and supported trade with the French. When Hamilton issued the idea of a National Bank, Jefferson opposed it, saying that it was not a specific power given directly in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, however, changed his views on strict and loose interpretation of the Constitution when he purchased Louisiana territory. He used a loose interpretation of the Constitution and used treaty-making powers to seal the deal with France. Another principle was the power to the states.

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I claim that the institution of slavery taints slave owners from being good to inhumane from the moment that they didn’t own slaves to the moment that they entered the slave business. Secondly, the male slave masters caused turmoil within their families by having children with slaves. Lastly, when slaves obtained the power of literacy, they gradually began to understand their oppression from slave masters and were able to forge a path to freedom

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Debates on abolition existed from 1783 well into the nineteenth century. One of the last influential debates was between Thomas Dew’s opposition to Thomas Jefferson’s view of slavery. Dew and Jefferson both discussed slavery’s economic, moral, and public order in the United States and showed how southerners justified an evil practice. Dew’s distorted view of how the black race could not function without masters shows the southerner’s desperation to defend their practice when confronted with Thomas Jefferson’s true beliefs on the practice. These two politicians provide incite on how the politics in southern government.

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In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass reveals several inhumane practices of slavery. He gives great description of the many horrors and evils of this practice along with the damaging effects slavery had on both slaves and slaveholders. During this period, ignorance was the most beneficial tool used to keep slaves ignorant and out of touch with reality. Along with robbing slaves of their identity and keeping them in the dark about basic facts about themselves, slaveholders also used false religion to justify treatment of the slaves. Lastly, Douglass describes the injustice and inhumane suffering and beatings amongst the slaves by white men without them ever having consequences.

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Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia” from 1781 establishes the “[deep] rooted prejudices entertained by the whites [and the] ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained” (Jefferson 128). He established an ethos that called the American public’s attention to how African American were treated and affected by the prejudice of white men in order for them to make profit. Even then, the “injuries” that the slaves and their future descendants have sustained also paved way to more grave issues that still persists in modern society today such as police brutality. Jefferson also wanted the American public to question the general “opinion, that [African labor were] inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence”, and yet “the whole commerce between master and slave [was] a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions” (129) shaped Jefferson’s perspective on slavery. In other words, in the view of Thomas Jefferson, he believed that the overall opinion of African Americans threatened the constitutionality of the United States and the ethics and values that the Declaration of Independence established.

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American Slavery From the Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, we can learn something about slavery at the same period. However, Jefferson’s perspective about the condition and the future of the slavery contrasted Jacob’s discussion of the cruel experience that a slavery girl suffered under her owner. According to Jefferson, though black people was inferior to white people, slave owners well treated their slaves, some even educated them. Nevertheless, from the slave girl’s perspective, things were totally different. Masters to them were monsters.

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The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows the imbalance of power between slaves and their masters. In his book, Douglass proves that slavery is a destructive force not only to the slaves, but also for the slaveholders. “Poison of the irresponsible power” that masters have upon their slaves that are dehumanizing and shameless, have changed the masters themselves and their morality(Douglass 39). This amount of power and control in contact with one man breaks the kindest heart and the purest thoughts turning the person evil and corrupt. Douglass uses flashbacks that illustrate the emotions that declare the negative effects of slavery.

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The story of Frederick Douglass’ is one of the most gruesome stories ever written in American literary history. The narrative goes in-depth about how the process of slavery was. It talks about how people would get whipped for the smallest of issues, dying if they resist enough, and even the process of the slave trade. It even shows how people become very different after the entire system of slavery gets into their minds. Through his powerful narrative, Frederick Douglass demonstrates how slavery dehumanizes not only the enslaved but also the enslaver, as it strips individuals of their basic humanity and perpetuates a system of cruelty and oppression.

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Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

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