Thus, Southern Slavery was a system of exploitation, but not to the extent which many abolitionists claim. Slavery in Southern America varied vastly between different masters. Some slaves were put through very harsh and demeaning experiences, such as the description of a slave named Francis Henderson in the book ‘A North-Side View of Slavery’. Francis was said to witness his master physically abusing his family right before his eyes. “I have known him to kick my aunt, an old woman who had raised the nursed him, and I have seen him punish my sisters awfully with hickories from the woods.” However, slavery in Southern America was usually patriarchal in character contrary to common belief; quite a big portion of slaves were regarded and considered to be part of the family to which they belonged.
At that moment he knew that slave masters identified a way to control the minds of slaves and that was too not simply give them there age. Douglass guessed that his father was his first white master, Captain Anthony. His mother, Harriet Bailey, who was a field hand and she was not allowed to see him very often; and she died when he was seven years old. Just because his father was a white man, Douglass did not have any privileges, he was treated like any other slave. Douglass had seen a horrific sight of
She served her masters for years and then when she grew too old to serve them they just tossed her out like a piece of trash and left her for dead. 2. What kind of master/Christian is Covey? Why does Douglass choose to discuss the effects slavery had on white families and Christians? Covey is a terrible Christian as well as slave owner.
Question 1- How does Douglass show that slavery corrupts slave owners? Douglass shows that slave owners constantly deny the humanity of their slaves in order to justify their ownership of human beings. To convince themselves that their slaves are not quite human, slave owners treat them inhumanely. In treating his slaves like beasts, however, the master becomes a beast himself. Douglass depicts the negative effects of slaveholding on slaveholders through the characters of Thomas Auld and Edward Covey.
| 3 | Evocative Imagery | “Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer and a savage monster.” | Douglass uses Name-calling to show his strong distaste for Mr. Plummer, as even other slaveholders get enraged at the way he treats his own slaves. | 4 | Parallelism | “No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.” | Douglass uses parallelism to describe the heartless actions taken by slave masters, even when they had their slaves pleading for mercy at their feet. | 4 | Evocative Imagery | “-and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cow-skin. I remember the first time I witnessed this horrible exhibition.
Douglass has no “respect” because he is thrown into a world of slavery where he must tolerate the disrespect being shoved at him. It isn’t until his fight with slave-breaker Edward Covey that the beginning stage of “respect” starts to make its way to him. The fight is where I can see Douglass start to transform. He writes "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man" (47). Brewton also brings to my attention that Douglass “devotes greater space in his first autobiography to the portrait of Covey than to any other character, black or white.” I think this is because the fight with Covey is a pivotal turning point for Douglass.
Douglass ends his main portrayal of slavery as unnatural for all involved. Douglass defines typical behavior patterns of slaveholders to portray the hurtful effects of slavery. He describes how many slave owning men have been tempted to adultery and rape, fathering children with their female slaves. This adultery jeopardized the union of the slave owner’s family, as the father is obligated to either sell or continuously punish his own child, while the slave owner’s wife becomes bitter and cruel. Douglass’s key demonstration of the corruption of slave owners is Sophia Auld, a woman who had never been a slaveholder before her husband attained Douglass.
Narrative of an American Slave Douglass' Narrative begins with the few facts he knows about his birth and parentage. He knows that his father is a slave owner and his mother is a slave named Harriet Bailey. Here and throughout the autobiography, Douglass highlights the common practice of white slave owners raping slave women, both to satisfy their sexual hungers and to expand their slave populations. In the first chapter, Douglass also makes mention of the hypocrisy of Christian slave owners who used religious teachings to justify their abhorrent treatment of slaves; the religious practice of slave owners is a recurrent theme in the text. Throughout the next several chapters, Douglass describes the conditions in which he and other slaves live.
The slave trade started in the mid seventeenth century; the slave traders treated the slaves awfully. The slave Trade went on for three hundred and seven years and eventually the slaves started to retaliate. In 1807 the law changed this meant the slave trade ended. Later that century in 1833 slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. There are many different reasons why it was abolished and in this essay I will explain them.
Slavery was part of southern culture. This caused debate with the North and South and caused them to spit into two separate territories. Lastly, The Northerners hated the fugitive slave law, which was another important cause of the Civil War. The fugitive slave law stated that anyone being caught helping a slave will be fined and that citizens had to report any acts of someone helping a slave to freedom. The Northerners hated this law.