ipl-logo

Slavery And California Essay

599 Words3 Pages

“ The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery”. Slavery and Labor are central themes that are similar in both slave girl in california and the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. However there are very opposing themes such as Family and Time as well. Both of these stories talked of slavery; moreover, they are in different ways. Douglass was born into slavery and Shymia was sold into it by her own family.

Both of these stories have slavery in common. Since Douglass witnessed a lot of things such as rape, beatings, and killings he was traumatized. In chapter one of the Narrative of Frederick Douglass he states that as a young child he was taken away from his mother. “Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for …show more content…

She was sold to a family who at the time lived in Cairo, Egypt. In exchange for her work, her family paid the ibrahims forty-five dollars a month. While she was there she was forced to clean. She wasn 't able to do anything such as play sports or go out with friends. “Shymia often worked 18 hours a day. Many nights, while the family slept, she stayed up ironing their outfits for the next day.” I don’t believe a 12 year old little girl she be forced into cruel labor.

Douglass and Shymia’s stories are similar in a lot of ways. However she had a family background and Douglass had barely any contact with his. “She lived with her parents and 10 brothers and sisters sharing a small one-bathroom home with three other families.” Although she didn’t have the best living conditions; she often felt loved. At least she knew her parents; and was able to live with them. Douglas; however, was born into slavery and was taken away from his mother at birth. He doesn’t even know who his father

Show More
Related

  • Similarities Between My Bondage And My Freedom And The Story Of An Hour

    477 Words  | 2 Pages

    This shows there was conflict between the master and the slaves. The master took away freedom from the people and made them slaves. Although Frederick Douglass at the time was free from the abuse often seen in slavery, he wasn’t free from his mind. He still has flashbacks and things that scared him forever. The quote “The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Frederick Douglass And Captain Canot

    773 Words  | 4 Pages

    Though they lived during the same time period their perspectives were very different from each other because of their role in their current society. In Fredrick Douglass book he was a slave since he was a child. He and his family were all treated poorly by their owners on a plantation. Many examples of this poor treatment are shown throughout the book such as “After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope. and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose.

    Read More

  • Richard Frethorne's An Indentured Servants, Slaves

    857 Words  | 4 Pages

    Between 1733-1772, newspapers printed “Ads for Runaway Servants and Slaves” with descriptions of the runaways, the jobs of the runaways, why they possibly ran away, who was looking for the runaways, and the rewards for the runaways. Reading the ads, you can understand why they would run away. Many of the runaways are not referred to in a human sense, but in a possessive sense and many of the ads had more than one person described. “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” was written in 1845 as an autobiography of Frederick Douglass. He wrote about his time as a slave, describing the slaves’ living conditions.

    Read More

  • Narrative By Frederick Douglass: The Detriments Of Slavery

    550 Words  | 3 Pages

    Douglass reiterates multiple times throughout the narrative how he is starved, deprived of clothing and beaten in his time as a slave. As a child, Douglass describes

    Read More

  • Slavery In Colonial America Essay

    637 Words  | 3 Pages

    Slavery began long before the colonization of North America. This was an issue in ancient Egypt, as well as other times and places throughout history. In discussing the evolution of African slavery from its origins, the resistance and abolitionist efforts through the start of the Civil War, it is found to have resulted in many conflicts within our nation. In 1619, the first Africans in America arrived in Jamestown on a Dutch ship.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass: Overcoming Obstacles

    392 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Position Of Slavery

    1574 Words  | 7 Pages

    Douglass is a African American that was a slave and did a Narrative about his time being a slave and in his Narrative he “threw light” at the American slave system. African American slave Frederick Douglass lived through a time of racism and how slavery was a natural thing to do but was a very awful thing. And slavery is when families who had colored skin were separated and sold of to a person that can do anything to them, the slave is pretty much like the slaveholder’s property. And in this essay I will talk about how Douglass’s position differs from those who supported slavery and also I will be talking about How Douglass used his Narrative to share his position. How Douglass “throws light” on the American Slave system is by showing

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Use And Abuse Of Power Essay

    498 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass shows the imbalance of power between slaves and their masters. In his book, Douglass proves that slavery is a destructive force not only to the slaves, but also for the slaveholders. “Poison of the irresponsible power” that masters have upon their slaves that are dehumanizing and shameless, have changed the masters themselves and their morality(Douglass 39). This amount of power and control in contact with one man breaks the kindest heart and the purest thoughts turning the person evil and corrupt. Douglass uses flashbacks that illustrate the emotions that declare the negative effects of slavery.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass's Arguments Against Slavery

    1080 Words  | 5 Pages

    In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass: The Abolition Of Slavery

    1216 Words  | 5 Pages

    Abolitionism was a well-known movement around the time of the Civil War and its aim was to put an end to slavery. The people of the early nineteenth century viewed the elimination of slavery in numerous ways. Some fought against the end of slavery, some appeared to mildly support the cause and yet others wholeheartedly supported the ending of slavery until their dying day. Charles Finney was a religious leader who promoted social reforms such as the abolition of slavery. He also fought for equality in education for women as well as for African Americans.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass View On Slavery

    873 Words  | 4 Pages

    Frederick Douglass was an American slave who escaped and later became an abolitionist He also published a book called The Narrative of Frederick Douglass. Through this book, Douglass threw light on the American slave system. He did this by showing many aspects of the of slavery, what slave owners thought of slavery, and also supporting his position on slavery by talking about much of the horrors slaves went through. One way he throws light on the slave system is by showing the aspects of slavery. This is shown when Douglass states on page 22 of The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, “Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass Rhetorical Analysis

    935 Words  | 4 Pages

    An American Slave,” Douglass discusses the horrors of being enslaved and a fugitive slave. Through Douglass’s use of figurative language, diction and repetition he emphasizes the cruelty he experiences thus allowing readers to under-stand his feelings of happiness, fear and isolation upon escaping slavery. Figurative language allocates emotions such as excitement, dread and seclusion. As a slave you have no rights, identity or home. Escaping slavery is the only hope of establishing a sense of self and humanity.

    Read More

  • Frederick Douglass: From Enslavement To Freedom

    387 Words  | 2 Pages

    Frederick Douglass was born into slavery as the son of a white slave master father and a black slave mother in Maryland in 1818. He escaped from slavery in 1838 because of his literacy. It was only due to his ability to read, write, and think critically that Frederick Douglass was able to find his way form enslavement to freedom. Life before learning how to read and write for Douglass was bad because he wasn’t given enough to eat. “I was seldom whipped by my old master, and suffered little from anything else than hunger and cold” (Douglass 8).

    Read More

  • Essay Comparing Frederick Douglass And Harriet Jacobs

    486 Words  | 2 Pages

    After having read both Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’s Incident 1. How were Douglass and Jacobs similar and different in their complaints against slavery? What accounts for these differences? In both the inspiring narratives of Narrative in the Life of Fredrick Douglass by Frederick Douglass’s and in Incidents in the life of a slave girl by Harriet Jacobs the respective authors demonstrate the horrors and disparity of slavery in there own ways.

    Read More

  • Essay On Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

    973 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

    Read More

More about Slavery And California Essay

Open Document