Within Mintz’s book, many brave individuals revealed and their stories told on how they dealt with and overcame slavery. Two courageous men who fought back and rebelled were Nat Turner and Fredrick Douglass. Nat Turner led the Southampton Insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, slaves murdered approximately 60 people, the most amount of deaths caused by slaves in any rebellion so far in the South. However, the rebellion was shut down within a matter of two days, but Turner was never caught because he hid soon after the rebellion was shut down.
An example was of a black male child who was forced to whip his mother to death. These bad things he saw were what gave him inspiration to start writing his pamphlets to put an end to slavery.
James Boler author of “Slave Resistance in Natchez, Mississippi (1719-1861)” the website: “Mississippi History Now” from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, “Slaves often rebelled against the cruelty of their white masters, cruelties such as branding, cutting off ears, whipping, and torture. The urges for freedom, and the desire to escape inhumane treatment, were the motives for slaves to rebel against their slaveholders. Signs of this resistance caused slave owners to fear insurrection, especially when slaves outnumbered whites.”
The work of these freed slaves and abolitionists inspired fear from southerners and northerners alike. They were afraid of a rush of freed slaves entering the North. Many opposers to abolition grew violent. During this time in 1830, David Walker, a free African American born in the South died under strange circumstances, after promoting the violent downfall of the slave trade (Norton,2015). Nat Turner kept seeing sign after sign up until 1831 when he began his murderous rebellion.
Frederick Douglass was born on a plantation in Maryland, and witnessed on the plantation a whipping at the age of 8. Frederick details how the woman who while being whipped, never stopped struggling and cursing against her overseer. This incident showed that Douglass developed an admiration for rebellion and hatred of slavery from a very young age. Later in his life, he was taught to read by his master’s wife and began teaching other blacks. While he was being whipped by his master, Douglass fought back and was never whipped by him again.
This quote and explanation sums up my claim because it shows the way the overseers would abuse their power by inflicting violence and pain upon black slaves. One more paragraph later Frederick Douglass us the third violent situation that would take place which was “The wife of Mr.Giles Hicks murdered my cousin's wife, a young girl between 15 and 16 years of age by breaking her nose and breast bone (chapter 4 paragraph 7).” This quote officially proves how slaves were being killed left and right without the overseers getting in trouble or even being questioned or pursued by police. This quote
Slavery was a severely cruel time in the United States before the Civil War. One of the known slave owners during that time was Colonel Edward Lloyd. The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass describes the struggle of most African Slaves under the supervision of so-called masters. It was rare to find a pure hearted slaveholder at the time; most of them could not care less of the slaves. All they wanted was fame and money.
The slave’s overseer told Harriet to help stop the runaway. When Harriet said no, the overseer threw a 2 pound weight that hit her in the head. These were very cruel things to do. In slavery they had slave breakers, these people were hired to beat and whip the slaves. The were trying to rip the souls out of the slaves so that they would only work and not think about escaping or doing
In August of 1831 tensions between slaves and their owners had risen. One such example was slave Nathaniel Turner of Southhampton County, Virginia. He organized a rebellion with other slaves and they all went around killing 55 to 65 slave owners. While some thought he was a hero, he was truly a mad man.
“If there is no struggle there is no progress” this is a quote from Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglas was born into slavery. Frederick worked at Talbot maryland. Frederick was 20 years old when he ran far away from his master. Mr douglas is an inspiration to many slaves.
Those who were labeled as slaves were sick of the mistreatment and the absence of their rights in which were diminished. For instance, Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery lived through harsh, gruesome conditions. When Douglass was nearly whipped to death, he fought back against his owner, Mr. Covey (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 568). Defense, Frederick used defense to save himself from the approach of death, he resisted and fought back for a reason, he could not allow his time of death to come without fighting. Further on, once becoming a free man, Douglass proceeded in raising awareness, he used his voice, his knowledge, to awake the people on what was happening, allowing them to understand that slavery must be unlawful.
Many slaves sought to violence when it came to the resistance of slavery. Although, most acts of violence among the slaves were subtle, “Examples of subtle violence resistance were intentionally or accidentally maiming work animals or oneself and destroying work tools” (“Slave Resistance”). Slaves believed that subtle acts of violence such as maiming equipment or even poisoning their masters would be easier to get away with. In many cases, plantation owners may not even recognize said actions as purposeful but merely accidental. Some slaves, such as Fredrick Douglas, resulted to fighting in order to resist slavery.
He had a slaveholder who was always “cursing, raving, cutting, and slashing among the slaves of the field, in the most frightful manner” (29). Although he was rarely beat, he constantly have to go without food and be in the cold. There was also Mr. Covey, who was a notorious “slave breaker” who gave Douglass “ a very severe whipping,
Then his wife and children this was the start of the bloodiest slave revolt in american history. The next two days more than 60 caucasian people would die. The salve group will go house to house and kill every man, woman, and child that they can find. The leader of this group of rebels was Nat Turner. Nat Turner was a self-styled prophet who claimed that god had told him to slay his enemies.
One example of a slave who endured many hardships, escaped to freedom, and wrote about it is Frederick Douglass. He was separated from his mother at a very young age, and hardly saw her before she died. He witnessed how his first master severely whipped women more than men, especially his own aunt. He recounts a specific time that Mr. Plummer was whipping her and “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped”, and “not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cow skin” (Douglas, 1845). His second master sent him off to a slave-breaker of sorts, who actually showed him how to guide oxen in the woods, but who would also give Douglass near weekly whippings, because of his clumsiness.
