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Impact Of Frederick Douglass

990 Words4 Pages

Christian Juram, Anthony Moran, Jack Sauer
Ms. Keller
Honors English 11
March 30th, 2023
The Impacts of Frederick Douglass Hampton, Virginia: late August of 1619. Approximately 30 enslaved men from the Kingdom of Ndongo arrived on behalf of an English privateer ship. Why is this specific event so important? This event single handedly changed the outlook on the United States of America and everything that would transpire in the country's 245 year history. One of the over 10 million slaves who lived in the US from 1619 to 1865 was Frederick Douglass. Douglass is significant because he was unlike most slaves in the fact that he knew and understood the English language. Douglass showed his comprehension for the language when he …show more content…

Enslavement was no light punishment as it was common for slaves to be deprived of common necessities and simple natural human rights. Oftentimes, slaves were beaten and abused for not completing a task correctly, not obeying the master, planning to revolt, or just for any reason that the master wanted to (sometimes there was no reason). This can be seen when Douglass is woken up to his Aunt being beaten. In the memoir, Douglass said that, “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream and whip her to make her hush” (Douglass 4). In this instance, Douglass' aunt was whipped and abused for simply liking another slave. Captain Anthony thought that as her owner, she should only like him. This furthers the point of how cruel slavery was because slaves couldn’t even experience love without being punished for it. Another occurance of brutal treatment towards slaves is shown when Douglass is questioning his own existence. During his memoir, he stated that, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed." (Douglass 24). Douglass was so entangled mentally with the rough treatment that he received from his condescending masters that he …show more content…

Throughout the narrative, he describes the things he was forced to do as a slave, giving him credibility to speak about the horrors of slavery. Douglass describes how he “was able to command the highest wages given to the most experienced calkers” (Douglass 58). Douglass's earnings lend him credibility as they demonstrate he had to work extremely hard to earn a wage as a slave. Also, Douglass’ experiences with the brutalities of slavery give him the credibility to talk about slave treatment. He says, “At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder” (Douglass 27). Douglass saw things like his aunt being pinned up on a wall and beaten brutally when he was just a kid. These kinds of first hand experiences at such an early age gives Douglass the right to share the truths of slavery in

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He became known as an inspirational person. Not many people are willing to go against what others believe, but Douglass was. His slave owner thought that it was “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass 29), but that did not stop him from pursuing further knowledge. Education has a powerful effect that makes others fear that one has superiority over them one way or another. Slaves had their basic human rights taken away from them because slave owners wanted them to lack the ability to form an opinion on what was happening to them.

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