Comparing Fedrick Douglass My Bondage And My Freedom

In most history classes, it is taught to view just the lives of the slaves as victims, and not considering any other point of view. Douglass wrote, My Bondage and My Freedom, to get the point across that slaves were not the only victims. Slaves, slave owners and white working people were all victims of the system. Fedrick Douglass wrote about the things he saw growing up as a slave. He saw each point of view loud and clear. Not each slave was treated the same, some were special to their slave holders. While others, were treated like animals. These victims are affected in different ways from each other. Some were victimized mentally and others physically, and some both. Just because you were not a slave does not mean you were in the clear. The

From the moment, they received the title, “slave”, each person was dehumanized, and stripped of their identity. Many slaves who were born into slavery, have no recollection of who they are. From babies, they are taken away from their mother and never told where, when or to who the mother was. They separated them from birth to avoid the connection from mother to baby, so they would not grieve the person that carried them for 9 months. This also was an effective way of dehumanization. Towards the beginning of slavery, when there were indentured slaves, white slaves were treated a whole lot different than black slaves. The white slaves were treated bad just not as bad. Yes, the white slaves were tied and whipped, but the black slaves barely had clothes on, they were practically naked (Elizabeth Sprigs 47-48). Slowly evolving the white supremacy came along and established the color of the skin with slavery. Making slavery a lifelong duty and no longer a sentence needed to work off. That is when most slave holders had no respect whatsoever for these slaves. They expected them to act like machines, do not feel, just do (Pettengil 02-1-17). Slaves had no choice, they seen whites as a person of power, and intelligence. But Douglass was a bright young man, who was very educated and believed in