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How Does Slavery Affect Slaveholders

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More than 200 years ago, slavery was taking over the United States. The popular belief was that slavery only affected slaves negatively. What people didn’t realize was that slavery also negatively affected slaveholders. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Frederick Douglass shows how slavery affects both slaves and slaveholders negatively by using memories, 1st person narration, and description. First, Frederick Douglass uses the recounting of memories to show how slavery affects slaves and their owners. In Chapter 1 of his novel, Douglass recalls his Aunt Hester’s whipping. He remembers how “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (Douglass Ch 1). His master cruelly whips her, with what seems to Douglass, as no heart. However, earlier on in the text, Douglass mentions how his master “ was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding”(Douglass Ch 1). Slaveholding causes his master to be a cruel man; the phrase “hardened by a long life of slaveholding” (Douglass Ch. 1) proves this. Captain Anthony, Douglass’s master, had a long life of slaveholding, which made his heart turn to iron, so that when whipping his slaves, he feels little remorse for his actions. Douglass’s memory …show more content…

Hicks “murdered my wife's cousin... mangling her person in the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward” ( Douglass Ch 4). He later says how Mrs. Hicks had a warrant for her arrest, but officials didn’t arrest her. The poor slave didn’t get justice for her horrible death, and the person who murdered her could do it again and again without punishment. By recalling this memory in his book, Douglass shows the reader how slaves were not important enough to waste effort on punishing the white people who hurt them. This is how slavery affected slaves

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