Isidore E. Sharpe Professor Tracy Moore HIS 104: American History 22 November 2017 Summary Paper on The Peculiar Institution, and an Age of Reform Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland into slavery, in 1818. He was the son of an unidentified Caucasian man and an African American mother.
Fredrick Douglass was born Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey, in Maryland in 1818 to Harriet Bailey. There were two mysteries surrounding Fredrick’s early life: one, the actual date of his birth and two, the identity of his father. Even though his father has not been confirmed, it is believed that Douglass’ father was Harriet’s slave master. At the very tender age of ten, Douglass’ mother died suddenly. Shortly after her death, Fredrick was sold to Hugh Auld, where he began working on his plantation.
Abolitionism was a well-known movement around the time of the Civil War and its aim was to put an end to slavery. The people of the early nineteenth century viewed the elimination of slavery in numerous ways. Some fought against the end of slavery, some appeared to mildly support the cause and yet others wholeheartedly supported the ending of slavery until their dying day. Charles Finney was a religious leader who promoted social reforms such as the abolition of slavery. He also fought for equality in education for women as well as for African Americans.
In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass presents a new perspective of slavery, which many people paid no attention to. He narrates several situations which prove that slavery not only harms the slaves, but the slaveholders as well. In the narrative, there are several episodes which show how too much power blinds and corrupts people, making them commit the most atrocious acts with clear conscience, which is the case of the slaveholders. In the beginning of the narrative, he talks of white fathers who constantly whip their mulatto children. In such cases, the role shifts from being fathers to being slaveholders.
The abolitionist movement was a social and political push for the direct liberation of all slaves and the termination of racial discrimination and segregation that started during the 1830s and continued on until the 1870s. During the abolitionist movement there were various major figures that played a huge role in the movement such as David Walker whose Appeal created a path for future Abolitionists and encouraged the movement. William Lloyd Garrison whose publication of an anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator was considered the formal start of the abolitionist movement. However, of all the individuals that played their part in the Abolition Movment in the United States I believe that the individual that had the greatest impact during the movement
In “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” Frederick Douglass recounts his journey from slavery to freedom, providing a powerful firsthand account of the brutalities and injustices faced by African Americans in the 19th century United States. The narrative sheds light on the dehumanization of enslaved individuals, the struggles of not giving up on their rights, and the importance of education during a period in American history. He has provided historical phrases in his narrative that shed light on his experience as a slave and helps the reader have an understanding of how slaves as well as him were treated. These phrases have helped readers be able to picture the cruelty enslaved individuals had to endure. In chapter one, there are
Frederick Douglass, a previous American slave and a forceful abolitionist, gave his acclaimed discourse, "The Hypocrisy of American Slavery" on July fourth, 1852, to a horde of abolitionists at Rochester, New York. He changed the way slavery was seen by Americans what 's more, pushed for flexibility. He changed slavery until the end of time! He was a firm adherent to. He changed the way slavery was drawn closer with only one discourse.
All the terrible and inhuman things that Douglass describes are the practical and usual things that happened in his time, they are not extraordinary. His true stories and multiple details from his life give the reader an idea about the effects of slavery on the life of different people in the
In his book The Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass the author attempts to show the negative effects of slavery to the white readers in the North. In his account Douglass shows how slavery is not only dehumanizing the slaves but also the slaveholders themselves. The detrimental effects of the slavery system are shown as early as Douglass’s childhood. His father being white, and the master of the boy’s mother, is encouraged by the power he holds not only to break maternal bonds between a mother and her child, but also to personally distance himself from his own so flesh and blood so much as to whip them or sell them off. This done either out of economic interest or out of deference for his wife.
Slavery in Douglass’s Narrative is portrayed as a destructive force which affects every aspect of life it touches. Despite being a slave, Douglass was able to acquire the enough knowledge that allowed him to consider his position as well as the positions of other slaves and slaveholders. From his point of view both slaves and slaveholders are devastated and utterly changed by slavery. He managed to give several examples on how the white slaveholders were morally and psychologically corrupted under this institution. Ironically, these white slaveholders refused the abolition of slaves despite being corrupted by slavery themselves.
I am about to talk about a very famous man who went from being a slave, and becoming a free man. He is a man that had a very interesting life. When he was young he had a terrible life from the day he was born. Yet during his years of being a slave, he was taught how to read and managed to escape his owner. He was the first slave fugitive to speak out against slavery.
This is how Douglass and other slaves destroyed the American slave system. First, along the long road to freedom Douglass and other slaves experienced a lot of physical harm done to them. The text states, “She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise.” This means that the owners thought it was ok to beat their slaves when they are doing most to all their work. Also, the book says, “I was not so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I had myself in a closet.”
He was a slave during this time and knew how it felt to be a slave and saw what went on in these times. Firstly some people think that slave owners had a good life because they had free labor and had freedom to do as they pleased. But Douglass on the other hand had a different opinion on that, he thought that all of the free labor and treatment to the slaves just hurt the slave owners morally. It made the slave owners look bad and gave people a bad impression on them as a whole. A quote that supports this is “As if whips, chains, thumb-screws, paddles, bloodhounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, were not all indispensable to keep the slaves down, and to give protection to
Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.
Moin Uddin Ahmed Professor Gabrielle Educational Justice 1 September 2016 The book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass book is based on Frederick Douglass narrating his life story as being a slave. Slave wasn’t treated as a human, they were treated as a “Property” to the white people. Also, slaveholder didn’t give enough food to the slave and they made their slave work throughout the year, even in the Winter season with just wearing one shirt. Furthermore, slaves did not have the right to go to school or learn how to read or write because white people were worried what if the black people overpowered them.
