Frederick Douglass Slavery Vs Labor

Slavery has been one of the most heart-wrenching and eye-opening segments in American history. While everyone is aware that slavery is terrible, few people realize that slavery took various forms and that no two stories are the same. Slaves that served in bigger cities had less work that revolved around labor, a better basic lifestyle and finally, they were treated better than their plantation counterparts. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass, Douglass uses his time in both posts to provide a valid and well-balanced comparison of the two very different but tragically similar lifestyles.
The jobs that the slaves had were undoubtedly difficult. However, the slaves on plantations had jobs that usually required much more heavy physical labor. “For the bulk of the southern population-free and slave-engaged in agriculture, life was mean and labor was

“Few are willing to incur the odium attaching to the reputation of being a cruel master; and above all things, they would not be known as not giving a slave enough to eat” (Douglass 51-52). Reputations were important throughout this time period. Slaveholders on plantations also cared deeply about their reputation, however, they did not want to be seen as “weak” or even nice. “Most enterprises probably met the minimum clothing needs of their bondsmen, but evidently some evidently employers deliberately stinted on clothing allotments just as they did on food” (Starobin 55). These plantation slaveholders gave their slaves basic necessities, but not enough for their slaves to be healthy and comfortable. In the book, Douglass stated that Covey did not want to take unruly slaves elsewhere to be “tamed” because he felt like an action like this would make him look weak to the others. Where in the city, most were worried about being too mean to their slaves because that was frowned