Effects Of Slavery In Frederick Douglass

Douglass was sent to live with Mr. Edward Covey in January 1833. Thomas Auld considered Douglass as a reluctant slave, so he sent to a slave breaker, Edward Dovey. Covey was a poor land renter who took slaves and used them to work his land while receiving training and discipline. Covey was known for his inhuman and harsh treatment of slaves. Douglass constantly thinking of freedom, so he did not follow instructions of his new master.

In Frederick Douglass’s book, he writes accounts of his time in slavery and beyond. Throughout the book, Douglass writes about not only the physical hardships slaves endured, but the mental and emotional hardships as well. In Chapter X, Douglass describes a battle he had with a temporary slave owner named Mr. Covey. After the fight concludes, Douglass writes, “This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood.

Frederick Douglass published two similar versions of his fight with the ‘slave-breaker’ Edward Covey in the tenth chapter of his The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, and in the seventeenth chapter of My Bondage and My Freedom. By comparing the two accounts it is possible to see an evolution of his thoughts on abolishing slavery and person hood which occurred in the years which transpired between the two works, 1845 and 1855. In the first account which Douglass wrote at around the age of 27 he narrates a physical confrontation where he refuses to allow himself to be whipped. Douglass struggles for two hours with Covey and also fights off Covey’s cousin at the same time.

Dehumanization had been apparent for many centuries through numerous civilizations. Egyptians used slaves to build the pyramids working days at a tie under the blistering sun. In ancient Greece, the upper classes used slaves as entertainment, fighting exotic beasts to the death. These cultures all used slaves and kept them under control by dehumanization. Although terrible, the United States followed in the footsteps of these other powerful civilizations using slaves to propel their own economy.

In the 1800’s slavery was a major issue in the United States which was dealt with on a daily basis in the South. The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” Fedrick Douglass himself expresses the differences in the lives of black people in the North and in the South. The South was known to have some of the wealthiest white people in the states, that wealth and power they had was due to the many slaves they had working in their plantations. In the other hand, the North had black people getting paid for their labor, their black people were free. They were treated like human beings and even though they might still encounter problems with some of the whites these problems where nothing compared to the retched life blacks had in the South.

He shows in the narrative how whites owners of the plantations or overseers, treated plantation hands as chattels. They used violence to keep slaves ineffective, immobilized, degraded and less than humans, and maintained their status as pieces of mere property. Apart from being subjected to gruesome cruelties, blacks faced array of difficulties. Douglass portrays the difficulties of black slaves throughout his narrative. The oppression and exploitation of white masters were inevitable a life under slavery.

Overall, Douglass' narrative addresses the serious problems and misconceptions of slavery and it reveals the truths. Douglass urges his readers to not believe in the so-called romanticism of slavery, or that blacks are intellectually inferior, or inferior at all, or that their prospects are better as slaves. He begs that his readers discover the truths, by reading about them through his own life experiences. Within Douglass' experiences, he successfully debunks the mythology of slavery by disproving that there is anything positive about. Because Douglass reached freedom, he knows that it can never be attained unless it is fought for.

NHD Outline *primary* (paraphrase) Introduction We had on the plantation an overseer, by the name of Austin Gore, a man who was highly respected as an overseer proud, ambitious, cruel, artful, obdurate. Nearly every slave stood in the utmost dread and horror of that man. His eye flashed confusion amongst them. He never spoke but to command, nor commanded but to be obeyed.

“Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities” (Douglass, 252).

More evidence of objectification is shown in the murder of Demby by Mr. Gore. To escape more whipping, Demby submerges himself into a creek and refuses to come out, resulting in Mr. Gore shooting Demby in the face. Justifying the murder, Gore argues that “if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life…the result…would be freedom of the slaves.” Gore’s justification objectifies Demby’s mortality by turning it into a tool to teach the other slaves of what would happen should they disobey. Finally, Douglass tells of his own dehumanization through violence as master Covey, the “slave breaker,” beats him after becoming too weak to work.

Slavery started in the year of 1619 in the southern part of the United States where Maryland is located and also where slavery was a way of life. Slavery was still a way of life when Frederick Douglass was born. Douglass was born into slavery, although the date of when he was born is not exact. Douglass was one of the slaves that is remembered well by a lot of people because he was a slave that became an abolitionist and wrote a book entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his book, Douglass argued that slaves were treated no better than, and sometimes worse than, livestock by telling a story about adultery and how the animals were fed better than the slaves.

In conclusion, Fredrick Douglass intended to show the horrors of slavery. He wanted to share his story so that he could change their views on slavery. Douglass writes in a straightforward, blunt manner to convey his point effectively to the reader. He does this so the readers won’t see him as an unintelligent, piece of property instead they’ll see him as a reliable and smart human being.

Throughout the narrative Douglass uses rhetorical imagery in order to provide readers with an insight to the true horrors of slavery. In chapter one of the narrative, Douglass speaks of the time when he would witness his aunt being tortured and beat by the master. He writes about seeing her “covered in blood” with “a whip upon her naked back”. Douglass uses and explains this experience in detail in order to paint a picture in the readers’ head and give them a firsthand experience to the harsh life of a slave. By using blood as an example of what he sensed, he is bringing in a word that is emotionally tied.