Frederick Douglass Religion

Slavery is the blight on America's history that is most often glossed over without a genuine consideration of its practiced evils and consequences. Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass provides an opportunity for a critical examination of this issue of slavery. Through an assessment of this written work and a reflection on the principles that define America, it can be understood that slavery is entirely inconsistent with three foundational American values: the integrity of the family, Christian religion, and the broadly conceived notion of American freedom. The traditional American nuclear family includes two parents (one of each sex) and at least one child, all sharing a common residence and economic means

He rather rejected the manipulation of doctrine utilized by the slaveholders to achieve their end. Douglass wrote that, "the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,-a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,-a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,-and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection" (965). Religion was therefore not only a means of false justification for slave owners, but also a source of unified protection against any criticism of slave practices that could arise. Douglass seemed to insist that there was a genuine form of Christianity that was based upon love of God and love of "thy neighbor," but that these Southern practitioners certainly had not converted to the belief in such a doctrine. He continually remarked on the delusion of these people by referring to them by their "piousness" (953-956). Each time Douglass employed the word "pious" as a descriptive qualifier of a person, place, or practice, the reader was less inclined to believe them to truly display the characteristics understood to be associated with the

He argued that it was this practice of bestial treatment and the denial of education that oppressed the slaves and forced them to accept their condition. He wrote, "I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man" (975). From birth, slaves were immediately treated as brutes and made to do the bidding of another. They were not allowed to gain knowledge of the world around them, and their minds were constantly oppressed by their masters. In this way, Douglass believed that slaves were turned from men into brutes and that they would only truly reclaim a sense of their personal freedom when they recovered their manhood, as Douglass did by opposing and defeating his own white master. He believed that all slaves should make "one noble effort to be free" whereby they could recover their personhood and the sense of their own entitlement to American