Fredrick Douglass1 essays

Fredrick Douglass1 essays The brutality that slaves endured form their masters and from the institution of slavery caused slaves to be denied their god given rights. In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass has the ability to show the psychological battle between the white slave holders and their black slaves, which is shown by Douglass own intellectual struggles against his white slave holders. I will focus my attention on how education allowed Douglass to understand how slavery was wrong, and how the Americans saw the blacks as not equal, and only suitable for slave work. I will also contrast how Douglass view was very similar to that of the women in antebellum America, and the role that Christianity played in his life as a slave and then as a free man. The novel clearly displays the childrens animalistic behavior when they were not regularly allowanced. Douglass says, Our food was coarse corn meal boiled, which was called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied" (Douglass 41-42). This clearly describes how children where treated like animals and their inability to act in the manner of a normal educated child. Slave children were denied many luxuries that other children took for granted. The knowledge of their birthdays was one of these luxuries. Douglass states, "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larg er part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I ...