Similarities Between Harriet Jacobs And Frederick Douglass

Slavery has been a major phenomenon in this world. Slavery had a wide variety of faces however the concepts were the same. Slaves were considered property, property because of the color of their skin. As property slaves experienced violence, humiliations, and much more. Harriet Tubman quotes, “I think slavery is the next thing to hell, if a person would send another into bondage he would, it appears to me, be bad enough to send him into hell if he could”. A topic such as this one has many riding on different emotions, experiences, and stories. We may extend the idea that slavery was a horrifying situation but only slaves themselves can tell us raw facts and experiences to what slavery really was. Slaves were humans they experienced love, loss,

According to Merriam-Webster childhood is the period during which a person is a child; the early period in the development of something. Think of a moment when you were free without a single care in the world yet at the same time at your most vulnerable. During this precious time, you are being introduced to many things such as surroundings, individuals, objects, and getting acquainted with what they are. Children are raised into different surroundings. Perhaps raised in the nicest of the nice homes, or very privileged in the poor side of town. All have a story to tell just as Jacobs and Douglass did. Unlike other children, black children were born into slavery even when they were unaware of it happening; it was something that was inevitably bound to happen. Jacobs and Douglass’s story has slightly differed and at he same time show common situations to how they have experienced their childhood, but before introducing their story let’s think to that point in time and describe how it was for all colored children in that time. On account of the Children & Youth in History article, “Like adults, children were participants among the slave trade that had a variety of sources”. Although in time children did not have much value as older slaves did they were certain to enter slavery one point in their life. It was just as hard for children as it was for the adults. According to

In his circumstances, slavery faced him pretty early in his life. In his early life he explained, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it” (Douglass 1). A common characteristic that all slaves shared was that they knew very little of their age because born into slavery at such a young age masters do a job to assure they know very little of their past life or present. He was left with a father who he was unsure to be. A mother who he had only seen no more than 4 times; her name was Harriet Bailey daughter of Isaac and Betsy Bailey. His image of her was very vivid, all he could remember were the few times that his mother would come visit him at night. She had been hired by a man that went by the name of Mr. Stewart, who had lived 12 miles from where Douglass was as an infant. For slaves it was common for a slave to be separated from their offspring and be sold to a family where an old woman would then watch over the child and nurture them to them to point it was time to be sent off to work. Douglass explains, “I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four times in my life; and each of these times were short in duration, and at night” (2). Douglass’s mother must have had a strong affection for him if she would travel that distance to see him at night. Unfortunately, death had hit her too soon when Douglass was about the age of