Modern Day Slavery In Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglas

Modern Day Slavery

We will never quite understand what it was like to experience slavery. While there are many different types of slavery that exist today, such as forced labor, sex trafficking, and domestic servitude, to name a few, we are lucky to have never experienced or witnessed, the type of slavery that great American abolitionist Frederick Douglass endured. In the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, we as readers encounter an in-depth description of the beatings that Frederick had a testimony for. We genuinely do not realize how much privilege we hold in the 21st century. Douglass saw horrifying, blood drawing, and angry beatings of his loved ones, was unaware of how old he was, was not granted an education, and so much

Throughout Douglass’ life, and in the book, he refers to several different of his “owners” as his “master”. Besides having to refer to people in power to us as “Mr./Mrs.”, or “Dr.”, we don’t typically have to address people in any specific way without wanting to. However, slaves were not given these freedoms. In the book, the word “master” is quoted a minimum of 82 times, which is probably more times than any of us have even said in our lifetime (just an assumption). If you disrespected your “master” in any way, you were subject to being beaten in unimaginable ways. Sadly, Frederick retells an encounter he witnessed with a slave who was beaten to death for falling asleep while sitting with her “master’s” baby. This slave was a fifteen year old girl. During these times, murdering a slave was not a crime. “... killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community… [they] used to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when others would do as much as he had done,” (Douglass, Chapter

In the 1800’s, there was a huge power dynamic between slaves and their “owners”. There is a lot of social inequality during ths time of slavery, thus creating unequal dynamics. A huge concept of the conflict theory is how the elite control the poor and weak, and for Frederick Douglass, who was hardly even considered a person during these times, is a prime example of how conflict theory within sociology. According to Alfred Gray, a sociologist, conflict theory is a result of constant struggle throughout society to determine who has authority, and how far it goes (Gray, 10). In the narrative, Douglass discusses how he was supposed to be treated unequally, and when he got a new mistress, quoted, “It was at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of irresponsible power, to make her equal to the task of treating me as though I were a brute” (Douglass, Chapter VII). When Douglass assumed that this was how he was supposed to be treated, regardless, it proves that there is an unequal power dynamic between the Black slaves and their white