Frederick Douglas was born into slavery around 1818 and spent most of his youth on a farm as a slave. He escaped north to New Bedford, Massachusetts to seek life as a free slave. He later became a speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society and gave his firsthand encounter on this unjust system. Frederick Douglas argues that slavery was an institution that victimized everyone. Slavery was a horrible and cruel system that affected everyone physically and emotionally; even those who were not connected to the practice directly.
Slavery dehumanized slaves by stripping them of their identities. They were kept ignorant about their age and place of birth. Most often they knew nothing about their parents other than what other slaves told them. The slave system made siblings into complete strangers. Frederick Douglas said, “I really wanted to play with my brother and sisters, but they were strangers to me” (Douglas 31).It destroyed families because Africans were kidnapped and forced to work for life. It caused emotional pain to young kids who were soon to be working on the fields. They were kept ignorant on how to read or write so they believed mostly everything the slave owners told them. They believed that god made the white man to rule over them. The living conditions were harsh. Slaves worked long
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Slaves took away jobs from the working white class. The masters were teaching slaves how to do the jobs of the working white class so instead of paying them to get a job done, they can now get it done for free. “Their financial opportunity is eliminated” (Pettengill 9-17-2014).They also were subject to ridicule from slave owners because they had no slaves. They were trying to make something of themselves in these colonies and the only way to do that was to work and save enough money to buy slaves. With no jobs, it was difficult to do such a thing. Slavery divided the working class and the upper