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Role Of Slavery In Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

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In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Douglass presented his life as a slave and the hardships he endured. He exposed the cruelties he faced throughout his time as a slave. He also shows how slavery affected everyone involved. Not just the slaves were negatively affected, but the slaveholders also were. He showed how slavery inflicted its hold on their social life, their family life, and their religious life. Firstly, slavery changed the slaveholders. It brought out the worst in people. Take Mrs. Auld for example. When he first moved to Baltimore, Mrs. Auld was very kind and caring to Douglass and even begins teaching him to read, but she begins to change: “When I went there,she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman”(32). Unfortunately though, she becomes consumed by the curse that slavery is: “Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities”(32). Slavery rob its ambassadors of their humanity. …show more content…

Some slaveholders were quite affectionate towards their female slaves. Naturally, some ended up having children with their mistresses. Perfect case in point would be Douglass himself: his father was suspected to be his master but no proof was provided to him. Back then mixed children were not accepted among whites. Therefore, whether by choice or pressure, slaveholders would have to enslave there very own children. The effects on family wouldn’t hold back there though. The wives of the adultering slaveholders would in turn be angry at their husbands. The wives could not anything to their husbands though, so they took it out on the mistresses. Slavery caused all to be violent and

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