Working Conditions In Frederick Douglass

Because of history's ideas, slaveholders used cruel and unusual treatment to discipline “bad” behavior. Working conditions for slaves was extremely brutal and unhealthy. Masters were unsympathetic to the weather that the days held because they were only worried about the amount of crops picked. According to Frederick Douglass’s narrative, the weather was cold, snow, rain, scorching hot, and dusty slaves were still expected to work from sun up to sun down (55). If slaves did not respond to the wake up call in the mornings they would be whipped until they realized they needed to head out to work. As painful as that might sound, on the plantations there was an overseer of the fields. What that means is instead of the master watching every move

Not only were the working conditions bad, but also the living conditions were just as harmful. Many women who worked in the house went through rape and nothing was said about it. Douglass talked in his narrative about how women were taken advantage of and no one blinked an eye to it because if white men rapped these women it was not a crime which is the total opposite in today’s society. Also on page six of Douglass’s narrative it said how the white men would rape and beat women and get pleasure out of their screams. Men in this era were taught to treat women as useless objects and it was easy for them to take advantage of them because they were a lot smaller than them. Rudely, slave owners when buying or simply acknowledging the slave would use harsh words and profanity. According to Louis Hughes he gave an example of how whites talked to blacks, ““You look like a right smart nigger,” and “Virginia always produces good darkies.”” ( 9). History had made it out that whites were superior to the African American society and that it was okay to use such savage words toward humans of a different race. In the novel March, Mr. Clement uses the word Niggerology, and this shows how the white people talk about slaves in an offensive way, and not care about the feelings of the

Another part of Hughes’s book it stated that if a slave was scarred up in selling them that a slave buyer would request a new slave because they know the slaves with scars are the slaves who rebelled which might not always be the case because slave owners also found a reason to just whip an innocent slave (8). Women slaves were sold in the range of five hundred dollars to around around one thousand four hundred dollars. Labeling, whites would refer to slaves as their property and put price tags on them to buy and sell. Though their beliefs, whites knew they could control the lessers class, manipulate them, and put prices on them because if they said one thing about it, it would not end well for the slaves. The reason for this all was that whites were the power race and had numbers over blacks which made it easier for them to impose their will on the lesser race as they so call them. The authority masters had over slaves was tremendous, and their treatment tore them down mentally and