n the Interesting Narrative, the life of Olaudah Equiano, he describes his experiences aboard a ship to the Americas as a slave. Although everyone aboard is frightened, Olaudah seems to stay on the lookout for the positive, just hoping something good will happen even after he is separated from his family. He pays close attention to the whites and everything going on around him. He seems to feel everything very deeply and has lots of morals but, is extremely exhausted emotionally and physically. I believe Olaudah is an extremely kind and generous person with lots of spiritual growth.
Olaudah describes a long voyage through different african regions calling Tinmah "the most beautiful country i had seen yet in Africa." I think it's amazing after he had been taken away from his last happiness, his sister, he was still able to find beauty in the things around him. He tasted the sweet sugar cane and cocoa nuts, finding
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Unimaginable crowding created lots of suffocation. Moans and groans of the dying echoed through the boat, Every African soul and body ached while white men feasted on succulent fish. At least, what seemed succulent to the slaves was normal for the whites. This may have been the toughest thing Olauduh, or anyone like him had to go through. Olaudah describes himself as God's most obedient and devoted humble servant, as the slave masters describe him as obedient and devoted to his work. It shows lots of good hearted character when you are put in a situation you did not choose and still do your best and devote your life to it. He had always treated his friends, family and people around him with care and affection. When he was going on better things as a slave he stated "All my poor countrymen, the slaves, when they heard of my leaving them, were very sorry, as I did every thing I could to comfort the poor creatures, and render their condition
He announced that even if a slave is wrongfully accused, he must not attempt to explain or fight for himself. From this quote we can tell that he is demonstrating the insincere sustainability one must act upon to sustain power in slaveholding. This all represents
He continues to be a comfort to the rest of the slaves on the
They were often violent, intolerant, ignorant, greedy and merciless. This newfound authority corrupted their nature on a great scale. Instead of allowing these conditions to break Fredrick Douglass, he became a force to be reckoned with. He used his life experience as a testament rather than a death certificate.
Frederick Douglass was a good person during his lifetime for all the good things that he had done to help the world in a lot of places while he had been a slave which is very great due to the fact that he had very little to help him throughout his journey of helping the world. In my opinion I think that the greatest thing that Frederick Douglass had done was help to stop slavery. Another thing that I am very surprised of what he had done was learn how to read. This is very shocking to me that he had learned how to read because he barely had any resources to help him but he still did not give up, in fact Douglass had actually kept on pushing forward on learning how to read and he had used every resource that he could find because he knew that in order to help himself be successful in freeing the slaves and to do a lot more that would help the world. Something that I find sad about Frederick Douglass’s life is that he did not have parents to help him with all of the great things that he had done due to the fact that he lost his mother when she had tried to run away and save him while his father was a white man who had forced Douglass’s mother into making children to
Ohiyesa’s The Soul of the Indian gives a nostalgic critique on the encroachment of white civilization on the Native American culture, citing the parallelisms the two societies share and explaining the reasoning behind Native American rituals. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass gives a glimpse into the life of a slave, comparing the life of the free and the enslaved, and giving reason to the actions of the slave and slave master. Throughout each book, it becomes apparent that each has a common trait: the white population’s use of religion as a means for their cruelty. To clarify, religion is used as a justification for their respective instances of oppression, both the purge of Native Americans and Native American culture for Ohiyesa, and slavery for Douglass. Although they experience different systems of oppression, Douglass and Ohiyesa see how the corruption of religion can be used by the white majority to assert themselves as masters to their respective peoples.
Although, back then was a completely different story. The Interesting Story of the life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano shows not only the struggles of being a newcomer in America, but also the difficulties he had to persevere coming over. Slaves were considered property, and not humans, so they often received harsh treatment which sometimes even were serious injuries or death. “While we forgot our misfortunes in the joy of being together, but even that small comfort was soon to have an end”, Olaudah says and he is one of the many slave siblings that were torn apart by the selling and buying of slaves (Jefferson 57). This had to be devastating for him and his sister because not only are they thousands of miles away from home and family, but they were also torn from the little family they had left.
They were given leisure time and the owners would not appear cruel towards their slaves. The better treated the slaves were, the better the owners looked. He did not mind leaving the plantation because he did not have any family that he was leaving behind like most people did. Douglass keeps a positive attitude throughout the hardships because he believes that it could always be worse. At his new home, he is treated much differently than most slaves do.
In his letter he described his life as an indentured servant as one where he has nothing to comfort him but sickness and death. The life that he was living in colonial Virginia was one where you couldn’t escape or else you will be captured. Attempting it could of cause him to die, therefore he hoped his parents brought his escape but with his parents being poor there was no way of escaping the life of an indentured servant. Having no escape as an indentured servant, he wrote to his parents a letter asking that his parents bought out the indenture. In his letter, he wrote that he was trapped in a place filled of diseases that can make any body weak and leave you with lack of comfort and rattled with guilt.
Douglass encountered multiple harsh realities of being enslaved. For example, the ex-slave was practically starved to death by his masters on multiple occasions. In fact, “[He was] allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else... It was not enough for [him] to subsist upon... A great many times [he had] been nearly perishing with hunger” (pg 31).
While learning to read and write ultimately helped him escape, it caused him suffering beforehand. More thorough understanding of slavery made him angrier with his masters, less satisfied with complacency, and more anguished at his position. What he read was liberating and crushing simultaneously, and he detailed this ironic duality in describing his anguished emotions at the time. The writings themselves also prompted discussion of the irony in hypocritically oppressive slave owners who claim to be Americans for freedom and Christians for equality but force the opposites on slaves. Describing his stressful emotions, which happened to be situationally ironic, creates an effective emotional appeal to sympathy similar to the childhood chapters.
This piece of literature is highly informal about the tragedies of slavery and for Douglass to have shared his story with people all over the world is a highly respected act. Sometimes, you sit and wonder how people could be so vile towards others based solely on the color of their
His beatings and lack of food were only part of his miserable daily life. Eventually Douglass was able to successfully escape this life and vowed to forever actively support the equality of all
John Dickinson treated his slaves with compassion and good intentions. On the John Dickinson plantation many slaves were seen as a form of family. Slaves lived in the home and stayed to work for his family after they were freed. The family tried to bury some slaves with them because of the bond they felt with them. Also, Dickinson would buy the family members of slaves to keep their families together instead letting them be sold to separate states.
Masters basically taught their slaves that they didn’t have any worth and humanity, that’s how he was raised as a slave, to be less than what he is. As a young slave he didn’t know much and that was normal. Masters wanted slaves not to know much of their status so they was quite clueless. Masters kept the slaves clueless so that they wouldn’t stand up for themselves. Slave owners wanted the slaves to know that in fact they were very to the slaves.
He uses these experiences to show just how unjust the treatment towards slaves was. As a child, he was not allowed to learn like many of the white children were, they wanted to keep the slaves ignorant